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Doing Research: A New Researcher’s Guide pp 1–15 Cite as

What Is Research, and Why Do People Do It?

  • James Hiebert 6 ,
  • Jinfa Cai 7 ,
  • Stephen Hwang 7 ,
  • Anne K Morris 6 &
  • Charles Hohensee 6  
  • Open Access
  • First Online: 03 December 2022

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Part of the Research in Mathematics Education book series (RME)

Abstractspiepr Abs1

Every day people do research as they gather information to learn about something of interest. In the scientific world, however, research means something different than simply gathering information. Scientific research is characterized by its careful planning and observing, by its relentless efforts to understand and explain, and by its commitment to learn from everyone else seriously engaged in research. We call this kind of research scientific inquiry and define it as “formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses.” By “hypotheses” we do not mean the hypotheses you encounter in statistics courses. We mean predictions about what you expect to find and rationales for why you made these predictions. Throughout this and the remaining chapters we make clear that the process of scientific inquiry applies to all kinds of research studies and data, both qualitative and quantitative.

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Part I. What Is Research?

Have you ever studied something carefully because you wanted to know more about it? Maybe you wanted to know more about your grandmother’s life when she was younger so you asked her to tell you stories from her childhood, or maybe you wanted to know more about a fertilizer you were about to use in your garden so you read the ingredients on the package and looked them up online. According to the dictionary definition, you were doing research.

Recall your high school assignments asking you to “research” a topic. The assignment likely included consulting a variety of sources that discussed the topic, perhaps including some “original” sources. Often, the teacher referred to your product as a “research paper.”

Were you conducting research when you interviewed your grandmother or wrote high school papers reviewing a particular topic? Our view is that you were engaged in part of the research process, but only a small part. In this book, we reserve the word “research” for what it means in the scientific world, that is, for scientific research or, more pointedly, for scientific inquiry .

Exercise 1.1

Before you read any further, write a definition of what you think scientific inquiry is. Keep it short—Two to three sentences. You will periodically update this definition as you read this chapter and the remainder of the book.

This book is about scientific inquiry—what it is and how to do it. For starters, scientific inquiry is a process, a particular way of finding out about something that involves a number of phases. Each phase of the process constitutes one aspect of scientific inquiry. You are doing scientific inquiry as you engage in each phase, but you have not done scientific inquiry until you complete the full process. Each phase is necessary but not sufficient.

In this chapter, we set the stage by defining scientific inquiry—describing what it is and what it is not—and by discussing what it is good for and why people do it. The remaining chapters build directly on the ideas presented in this chapter.

A first thing to know is that scientific inquiry is not all or nothing. “Scientificness” is a continuum. Inquiries can be more scientific or less scientific. What makes an inquiry more scientific? You might be surprised there is no universally agreed upon answer to this question. None of the descriptors we know of are sufficient by themselves to define scientific inquiry. But all of them give you a way of thinking about some aspects of the process of scientific inquiry. Each one gives you different insights.

An image of the book's description with the words like research, science, and inquiry and what the word research meant in the scientific world.

Exercise 1.2

As you read about each descriptor below, think about what would make an inquiry more or less scientific. If you think a descriptor is important, use it to revise your definition of scientific inquiry.

Creating an Image of Scientific Inquiry

We will present three descriptors of scientific inquiry. Each provides a different perspective and emphasizes a different aspect of scientific inquiry. We will draw on all three descriptors to compose our definition of scientific inquiry.

Descriptor 1. Experience Carefully Planned in Advance

Sir Ronald Fisher, often called the father of modern statistical design, once referred to research as “experience carefully planned in advance” (1935, p. 8). He said that humans are always learning from experience, from interacting with the world around them. Usually, this learning is haphazard rather than the result of a deliberate process carried out over an extended period of time. Research, Fisher said, was learning from experience, but experience carefully planned in advance.

This phrase can be fully appreciated by looking at each word. The fact that scientific inquiry is based on experience means that it is based on interacting with the world. These interactions could be thought of as the stuff of scientific inquiry. In addition, it is not just any experience that counts. The experience must be carefully planned . The interactions with the world must be conducted with an explicit, describable purpose, and steps must be taken to make the intended learning as likely as possible. This planning is an integral part of scientific inquiry; it is not just a preparation phase. It is one of the things that distinguishes scientific inquiry from many everyday learning experiences. Finally, these steps must be taken beforehand and the purpose of the inquiry must be articulated in advance of the experience. Clearly, scientific inquiry does not happen by accident, by just stumbling into something. Stumbling into something unexpected and interesting can happen while engaged in scientific inquiry, but learning does not depend on it and serendipity does not make the inquiry scientific.

Descriptor 2. Observing Something and Trying to Explain Why It Is the Way It Is

When we were writing this chapter and googled “scientific inquiry,” the first entry was: “Scientific inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work.” The emphasis is on studying, or observing, and then explaining . This descriptor takes the image of scientific inquiry beyond carefully planned experience and includes explaining what was experienced.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “explain” means “(a) to make known, (b) to make plain or understandable, (c) to give the reason or cause of, and (d) to show the logical development or relations of” (Merriam-Webster, n.d. ). We will use all these definitions. Taken together, they suggest that to explain an observation means to understand it by finding reasons (or causes) for why it is as it is. In this sense of scientific inquiry, the following are synonyms: explaining why, understanding why, and reasoning about causes and effects. Our image of scientific inquiry now includes planning, observing, and explaining why.

An image represents the observation required in the scientific inquiry including planning and explaining.

We need to add a final note about this descriptor. We have phrased it in a way that suggests “observing something” means you are observing something in real time—observing the way things are or the way things are changing. This is often true. But, observing could mean observing data that already have been collected, maybe by someone else making the original observations (e.g., secondary analysis of NAEP data or analysis of existing video recordings of classroom instruction). We will address secondary analyses more fully in Chap. 4 . For now, what is important is that the process requires explaining why the data look like they do.

We must note that for us, the term “data” is not limited to numerical or quantitative data such as test scores. Data can also take many nonquantitative forms, including written survey responses, interview transcripts, journal entries, video recordings of students, teachers, and classrooms, text messages, and so forth.

An image represents the data explanation as it is not limited and takes numerous non-quantitative forms including an interview, journal entries, etc.

Exercise 1.3

What are the implications of the statement that just “observing” is not enough to count as scientific inquiry? Does this mean that a detailed description of a phenomenon is not scientific inquiry?

Find sources that define research in education that differ with our position, that say description alone, without explanation, counts as scientific research. Identify the precise points where the opinions differ. What are the best arguments for each of the positions? Which do you prefer? Why?

Descriptor 3. Updating Everyone’s Thinking in Response to More and Better Information

This descriptor focuses on a third aspect of scientific inquiry: updating and advancing the field’s understanding of phenomena that are investigated. This descriptor foregrounds a powerful characteristic of scientific inquiry: the reliability (or trustworthiness) of what is learned and the ultimate inevitability of this learning to advance human understanding of phenomena. Humans might choose not to learn from scientific inquiry, but history suggests that scientific inquiry always has the potential to advance understanding and that, eventually, humans take advantage of these new understandings.

Before exploring these bold claims a bit further, note that this descriptor uses “information” in the same way the previous two descriptors used “experience” and “observations.” These are the stuff of scientific inquiry and we will use them often, sometimes interchangeably. Frequently, we will use the term “data” to stand for all these terms.

An overriding goal of scientific inquiry is for everyone to learn from what one scientist does. Much of this book is about the methods you need to use so others have faith in what you report and can learn the same things you learned. This aspect of scientific inquiry has many implications.

One implication is that scientific inquiry is not a private practice. It is a public practice available for others to see and learn from. Notice how different this is from everyday learning. When you happen to learn something from your everyday experience, often only you gain from the experience. The fact that research is a public practice means it is also a social one. It is best conducted by interacting with others along the way: soliciting feedback at each phase, taking opportunities to present work-in-progress, and benefitting from the advice of others.

A second implication is that you, as the researcher, must be committed to sharing what you are doing and what you are learning in an open and transparent way. This allows all phases of your work to be scrutinized and critiqued. This is what gives your work credibility. The reliability or trustworthiness of your findings depends on your colleagues recognizing that you have used all appropriate methods to maximize the chances that your claims are justified by the data.

A third implication of viewing scientific inquiry as a collective enterprise is the reverse of the second—you must be committed to receiving comments from others. You must treat your colleagues as fair and honest critics even though it might sometimes feel otherwise. You must appreciate their job, which is to remain skeptical while scrutinizing what you have done in considerable detail. To provide the best help to you, they must remain skeptical about your conclusions (when, for example, the data are difficult for them to interpret) until you offer a convincing logical argument based on the information you share. A rather harsh but good-to-remember statement of the role of your friendly critics was voiced by Karl Popper, a well-known twentieth century philosopher of science: “. . . if you are interested in the problem which I tried to solve by my tentative assertion, you may help me by criticizing it as severely as you can” (Popper, 1968, p. 27).

A final implication of this third descriptor is that, as someone engaged in scientific inquiry, you have no choice but to update your thinking when the data support a different conclusion. This applies to your own data as well as to those of others. When data clearly point to a specific claim, even one that is quite different than you expected, you must reconsider your position. If the outcome is replicated multiple times, you need to adjust your thinking accordingly. Scientific inquiry does not let you pick and choose which data to believe; it mandates that everyone update their thinking when the data warrant an update.

Doing Scientific Inquiry

We define scientific inquiry in an operational sense—what does it mean to do scientific inquiry? What kind of process would satisfy all three descriptors: carefully planning an experience in advance; observing and trying to explain what you see; and, contributing to updating everyone’s thinking about an important phenomenon?

We define scientific inquiry as formulating , testing , and revising hypotheses about phenomena of interest.

Of course, we are not the only ones who define it in this way. The definition for the scientific method posted by the editors of Britannica is: “a researcher develops a hypothesis, tests it through various means, and then modifies the hypothesis on the basis of the outcome of the tests and experiments” (Britannica, n.d. ).

An image represents the scientific inquiry definition given by the editors of Britannica and also defines the hypothesis on the basis of the experiments.

Notice how defining scientific inquiry this way satisfies each of the descriptors. “Carefully planning an experience in advance” is exactly what happens when formulating a hypothesis about a phenomenon of interest and thinking about how to test it. “ Observing a phenomenon” occurs when testing a hypothesis, and “ explaining ” what is found is required when revising a hypothesis based on the data. Finally, “updating everyone’s thinking” comes from comparing publicly the original with the revised hypothesis.

Doing scientific inquiry, as we have defined it, underscores the value of accumulating knowledge rather than generating random bits of knowledge. Formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses is an ongoing process, with each revised hypothesis begging for another test, whether by the same researcher or by new researchers. The editors of Britannica signaled this cyclic process by adding the following phrase to their definition of the scientific method: “The modified hypothesis is then retested, further modified, and tested again.” Scientific inquiry creates a process that encourages each study to build on the studies that have gone before. Through collective engagement in this process of building study on top of study, the scientific community works together to update its thinking.

Before exploring more fully the meaning of “formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses,” we need to acknowledge that this is not the only way researchers define research. Some researchers prefer a less formal definition, one that includes more serendipity, less planning, less explanation. You might have come across more open definitions such as “research is finding out about something.” We prefer the tighter hypothesis formulation, testing, and revision definition because we believe it provides a single, coherent map for conducting research that addresses many of the thorny problems educational researchers encounter. We believe it is the most useful orientation toward research and the most helpful to learn as a beginning researcher.

A final clarification of our definition is that it applies equally to qualitative and quantitative research. This is a familiar distinction in education that has generated much discussion. You might think our definition favors quantitative methods over qualitative methods because the language of hypothesis formulation and testing is often associated with quantitative methods. In fact, we do not favor one method over another. In Chap. 4 , we will illustrate how our definition fits research using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods.

Exercise 1.4

Look for ways to extend what the field knows in an area that has already received attention by other researchers. Specifically, you can search for a program of research carried out by more experienced researchers that has some revised hypotheses that remain untested. Identify a revised hypothesis that you might like to test.

Unpacking the Terms Formulating, Testing, and Revising Hypotheses

To get a full sense of the definition of scientific inquiry we will use throughout this book, it is helpful to spend a little time with each of the key terms.

We first want to make clear that we use the term “hypothesis” as it is defined in most dictionaries and as it used in many scientific fields rather than as it is usually defined in educational statistics courses. By “hypothesis,” we do not mean a null hypothesis that is accepted or rejected by statistical analysis. Rather, we use “hypothesis” in the sense conveyed by the following definitions: “An idea or explanation for something that is based on known facts but has not yet been proved” (Cambridge University Press, n.d. ), and “An unproved theory, proposition, or supposition, tentatively accepted to explain certain facts and to provide a basis for further investigation or argument” (Agnes & Guralnik, 2008 ).

We distinguish two parts to “hypotheses.” Hypotheses consist of predictions and rationales . Predictions are statements about what you expect to find when you inquire about something. Rationales are explanations for why you made the predictions you did, why you believe your predictions are correct. So, for us “formulating hypotheses” means making explicit predictions and developing rationales for the predictions.

“Testing hypotheses” means making observations that allow you to assess in what ways your predictions were correct and in what ways they were incorrect. In education research, it is rarely useful to think of your predictions as either right or wrong. Because of the complexity of most issues you will investigate, most predictions will be right in some ways and wrong in others.

By studying the observations you make (data you collect) to test your hypotheses, you can revise your hypotheses to better align with the observations. This means revising your predictions plus revising your rationales to justify your adjusted predictions. Even though you might not run another test, formulating revised hypotheses is an essential part of conducting a research study. Comparing your original and revised hypotheses informs everyone of what you learned by conducting your study. In addition, a revised hypothesis sets the stage for you or someone else to extend your study and accumulate more knowledge of the phenomenon.

We should note that not everyone makes a clear distinction between predictions and rationales as two aspects of hypotheses. In fact, common, non-scientific uses of the word “hypothesis” may limit it to only a prediction or only an explanation (or rationale). We choose to explicitly include both prediction and rationale in our definition of hypothesis, not because we assert this should be the universal definition, but because we want to foreground the importance of both parts acting in concert. Using “hypothesis” to represent both prediction and rationale could hide the two aspects, but we make them explicit because they provide different kinds of information. It is usually easier to make predictions than develop rationales because predictions can be guesses, hunches, or gut feelings about which you have little confidence. Developing a compelling rationale requires careful thought plus reading what other researchers have found plus talking with your colleagues. Often, while you are developing your rationale you will find good reasons to change your predictions. Developing good rationales is the engine that drives scientific inquiry. Rationales are essentially descriptions of how much you know about the phenomenon you are studying. Throughout this guide, we will elaborate on how developing good rationales drives scientific inquiry. For now, we simply note that it can sharpen your predictions and help you to interpret your data as you test your hypotheses.

An image represents the rationale and the prediction for the scientific inquiry and different types of information provided by the terms.

Hypotheses in education research take a variety of forms or types. This is because there are a variety of phenomena that can be investigated. Investigating educational phenomena is sometimes best done using qualitative methods, sometimes using quantitative methods, and most often using mixed methods (e.g., Hay, 2016 ; Weis et al. 2019a ; Weisner, 2005 ). This means that, given our definition, hypotheses are equally applicable to qualitative and quantitative investigations.

Hypotheses take different forms when they are used to investigate different kinds of phenomena. Two very different activities in education could be labeled conducting experiments and descriptions. In an experiment, a hypothesis makes a prediction about anticipated changes, say the changes that occur when a treatment or intervention is applied. You might investigate how students’ thinking changes during a particular kind of instruction.

A second type of hypothesis, relevant for descriptive research, makes a prediction about what you will find when you investigate and describe the nature of a situation. The goal is to understand a situation as it exists rather than to understand a change from one situation to another. In this case, your prediction is what you expect to observe. Your rationale is the set of reasons for making this prediction; it is your current explanation for why the situation will look like it does.

You will probably read, if you have not already, that some researchers say you do not need a prediction to conduct a descriptive study. We will discuss this point of view in Chap. 2 . For now, we simply claim that scientific inquiry, as we have defined it, applies to all kinds of research studies. Descriptive studies, like others, not only benefit from formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses, but also need hypothesis formulating, testing, and revising.

One reason we define research as formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses is that if you think of research in this way you are less likely to go wrong. It is a useful guide for the entire process, as we will describe in detail in the chapters ahead. For example, as you build the rationale for your predictions, you are constructing the theoretical framework for your study (Chap. 3 ). As you work out the methods you will use to test your hypothesis, every decision you make will be based on asking, “Will this help me formulate or test or revise my hypothesis?” (Chap. 4 ). As you interpret the results of testing your predictions, you will compare them to what you predicted and examine the differences, focusing on how you must revise your hypotheses (Chap. 5 ). By anchoring the process to formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses, you will make smart decisions that yield a coherent and well-designed study.

Exercise 1.5

Compare the concept of formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses with the descriptions of scientific inquiry contained in Scientific Research in Education (NRC, 2002 ). How are they similar or different?

Exercise 1.6

Provide an example to illustrate and emphasize the differences between everyday learning/thinking and scientific inquiry.

Learning from Doing Scientific Inquiry

We noted earlier that a measure of what you have learned by conducting a research study is found in the differences between your original hypothesis and your revised hypothesis based on the data you collected to test your hypothesis. We will elaborate this statement in later chapters, but we preview our argument here.

Even before collecting data, scientific inquiry requires cycles of making a prediction, developing a rationale, refining your predictions, reading and studying more to strengthen your rationale, refining your predictions again, and so forth. And, even if you have run through several such cycles, you still will likely find that when you test your prediction you will be partly right and partly wrong. The results will support some parts of your predictions but not others, or the results will “kind of” support your predictions. A critical part of scientific inquiry is making sense of your results by interpreting them against your predictions. Carefully describing what aspects of your data supported your predictions, what aspects did not, and what data fell outside of any predictions is not an easy task, but you cannot learn from your study without doing this analysis.

An image represents the cycle of events that take place before making predictions, developing the rationale, and studying the prediction and rationale multiple times.

Analyzing the matches and mismatches between your predictions and your data allows you to formulate different rationales that would have accounted for more of the data. The best revised rationale is the one that accounts for the most data. Once you have revised your rationales, you can think about the predictions they best justify or explain. It is by comparing your original rationales to your new rationales that you can sort out what you learned from your study.

Suppose your study was an experiment. Maybe you were investigating the effects of a new instructional intervention on students’ learning. Your original rationale was your explanation for why the intervention would change the learning outcomes in a particular way. Your revised rationale explained why the changes that you observed occurred like they did and why your revised predictions are better. Maybe your original rationale focused on the potential of the activities if they were implemented in ideal ways and your revised rationale included the factors that are likely to affect how teachers implement them. By comparing the before and after rationales, you are describing what you learned—what you can explain now that you could not before. Another way of saying this is that you are describing how much more you understand now than before you conducted your study.

Revised predictions based on carefully planned and collected data usually exhibit some of the following features compared with the originals: more precision, more completeness, and broader scope. Revised rationales have more explanatory power and become more complete, more aligned with the new predictions, sharper, and overall more convincing.

Part II. Why Do Educators Do Research?

Doing scientific inquiry is a lot of work. Each phase of the process takes time, and you will often cycle back to improve earlier phases as you engage in later phases. Because of the significant effort required, you should make sure your study is worth it. So, from the beginning, you should think about the purpose of your study. Why do you want to do it? And, because research is a social practice, you should also think about whether the results of your study are likely to be important and significant to the education community.

If you are doing research in the way we have described—as scientific inquiry—then one purpose of your study is to understand , not just to describe or evaluate or report. As we noted earlier, when you formulate hypotheses, you are developing rationales that explain why things might be like they are. In our view, trying to understand and explain is what separates research from other kinds of activities, like evaluating or describing.

One reason understanding is so important is that it allows researchers to see how or why something works like it does. When you see how something works, you are better able to predict how it might work in other contexts, under other conditions. And, because conditions, or contextual factors, matter a lot in education, gaining insights into applying your findings to other contexts increases the contributions of your work and its importance to the broader education community.

Consequently, the purposes of research studies in education often include the more specific aim of identifying and understanding the conditions under which the phenomena being studied work like the observations suggest. A classic example of this kind of study in mathematics education was reported by William Brownell and Harold Moser in 1949 . They were trying to establish which method of subtracting whole numbers could be taught most effectively—the regrouping method or the equal additions method. However, they realized that effectiveness might depend on the conditions under which the methods were taught—“meaningfully” versus “mechanically.” So, they designed a study that crossed the two instructional approaches with the two different methods (regrouping and equal additions). Among other results, they found that these conditions did matter. The regrouping method was more effective under the meaningful condition than the mechanical condition, but the same was not true for the equal additions algorithm.

What do education researchers want to understand? In our view, the ultimate goal of education is to offer all students the best possible learning opportunities. So, we believe the ultimate purpose of scientific inquiry in education is to develop understanding that supports the improvement of learning opportunities for all students. We say “ultimate” because there are lots of issues that must be understood to improve learning opportunities for all students. Hypotheses about many aspects of education are connected, ultimately, to students’ learning. For example, formulating and testing a hypothesis that preservice teachers need to engage in particular kinds of activities in their coursework in order to teach particular topics well is, ultimately, connected to improving students’ learning opportunities. So is hypothesizing that school districts often devote relatively few resources to instructional leadership training or hypothesizing that positioning mathematics as a tool students can use to combat social injustice can help students see the relevance of mathematics to their lives.

We do not exclude the importance of research on educational issues more removed from improving students’ learning opportunities, but we do think the argument for their importance will be more difficult to make. If there is no way to imagine a connection between your hypothesis and improving learning opportunities for students, even a distant connection, we recommend you reconsider whether it is an important hypothesis within the education community.

Notice that we said the ultimate goal of education is to offer all students the best possible learning opportunities. For too long, educators have been satisfied with a goal of offering rich learning opportunities for lots of students, sometimes even for just the majority of students, but not necessarily for all students. Evaluations of success often are based on outcomes that show high averages. In other words, if many students have learned something, or even a smaller number have learned a lot, educators may have been satisfied. The problem is that there is usually a pattern in the groups of students who receive lower quality opportunities—students of color and students who live in poor areas, urban and rural. This is not acceptable. Consequently, we emphasize the premise that the purpose of education research is to offer rich learning opportunities to all students.

One way to make sure you will be able to convince others of the importance of your study is to consider investigating some aspect of teachers’ shared instructional problems. Historically, researchers in education have set their own research agendas, regardless of the problems teachers are facing in schools. It is increasingly recognized that teachers have had trouble applying to their own classrooms what researchers find. To address this problem, a researcher could partner with a teacher—better yet, a small group of teachers—and talk with them about instructional problems they all share. These discussions can create a rich pool of problems researchers can consider. If researchers pursued one of these problems (preferably alongside teachers), the connection to improving learning opportunities for all students could be direct and immediate. “Grounding a research question in instructional problems that are experienced across multiple teachers’ classrooms helps to ensure that the answer to the question will be of sufficient scope to be relevant and significant beyond the local context” (Cai et al., 2019b , p. 115).

As a beginning researcher, determining the relevance and importance of a research problem is especially challenging. We recommend talking with advisors, other experienced researchers, and peers to test the educational importance of possible research problems and topics of study. You will also learn much more about the issue of research importance when you read Chap. 5 .

Exercise 1.7

Identify a problem in education that is closely connected to improving learning opportunities and a problem that has a less close connection. For each problem, write a brief argument (like a logical sequence of if-then statements) that connects the problem to all students’ learning opportunities.

Part III. Conducting Research as a Practice of Failing Productively

Scientific inquiry involves formulating hypotheses about phenomena that are not fully understood—by you or anyone else. Even if you are able to inform your hypotheses with lots of knowledge that has already been accumulated, you are likely to find that your prediction is not entirely accurate. This is normal. Remember, scientific inquiry is a process of constantly updating your thinking. More and better information means revising your thinking, again, and again, and again. Because you never fully understand a complicated phenomenon and your hypotheses never produce completely accurate predictions, it is easy to believe you are somehow failing.

The trick is to fail upward, to fail to predict accurately in ways that inform your next hypothesis so you can make a better prediction. Some of the best-known researchers in education have been open and honest about the many times their predictions were wrong and, based on the results of their studies and those of others, they continuously updated their thinking and changed their hypotheses.

A striking example of publicly revising (actually reversing) hypotheses due to incorrect predictions is found in the work of Lee J. Cronbach, one of the most distinguished educational psychologists of the twentieth century. In 1955, Cronbach delivered his presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Titling it “Two Disciplines of Scientific Psychology,” Cronbach proposed a rapprochement between two research approaches—correlational studies that focused on individual differences and experimental studies that focused on instructional treatments controlling for individual differences. (We will examine different research approaches in Chap. 4 ). If these approaches could be brought together, reasoned Cronbach ( 1957 ), researchers could find interactions between individual characteristics and treatments (aptitude-treatment interactions or ATIs), fitting the best treatments to different individuals.

In 1975, after years of research by many researchers looking for ATIs, Cronbach acknowledged the evidence for simple, useful ATIs had not been found. Even when trying to find interactions between a few variables that could provide instructional guidance, the analysis, said Cronbach, creates “a hall of mirrors that extends to infinity, tormenting even the boldest investigators and defeating even ambitious designs” (Cronbach, 1975 , p. 119).

As he was reflecting back on his work, Cronbach ( 1986 ) recommended moving away from documenting instructional effects through statistical inference (an approach he had championed for much of his career) and toward approaches that probe the reasons for these effects, approaches that provide a “full account of events in a time, place, and context” (Cronbach, 1986 , p. 104). This is a remarkable change in hypotheses, a change based on data and made fully transparent. Cronbach understood the value of failing productively.

Closer to home, in a less dramatic example, one of us began a line of scientific inquiry into how to prepare elementary preservice teachers to teach early algebra. Teaching early algebra meant engaging elementary students in early forms of algebraic reasoning. Such reasoning should help them transition from arithmetic to algebra. To begin this line of inquiry, a set of activities for preservice teachers were developed. Even though the activities were based on well-supported hypotheses, they largely failed to engage preservice teachers as predicted because of unanticipated challenges the preservice teachers faced. To capitalize on this failure, follow-up studies were conducted, first to better understand elementary preservice teachers’ challenges with preparing to teach early algebra, and then to better support preservice teachers in navigating these challenges. In this example, the initial failure was a necessary step in the researchers’ scientific inquiry and furthered the researchers’ understanding of this issue.

We present another example of failing productively in Chap. 2 . That example emerges from recounting the history of a well-known research program in mathematics education.

Making mistakes is an inherent part of doing scientific research. Conducting a study is rarely a smooth path from beginning to end. We recommend that you keep the following things in mind as you begin a career of conducting research in education.

First, do not get discouraged when you make mistakes; do not fall into the trap of feeling like you are not capable of doing research because you make too many errors.

Second, learn from your mistakes. Do not ignore your mistakes or treat them as errors that you simply need to forget and move past. Mistakes are rich sites for learning—in research just as in other fields of study.

Third, by reflecting on your mistakes, you can learn to make better mistakes, mistakes that inform you about a productive next step. You will not be able to eliminate your mistakes, but you can set a goal of making better and better mistakes.

Exercise 1.8

How does scientific inquiry differ from everyday learning in giving you the tools to fail upward? You may find helpful perspectives on this question in other resources on science and scientific inquiry (e.g., Failure: Why Science is So Successful by Firestein, 2015).

Exercise 1.9

Use what you have learned in this chapter to write a new definition of scientific inquiry. Compare this definition with the one you wrote before reading this chapter. If you are reading this book as part of a course, compare your definition with your colleagues’ definitions. Develop a consensus definition with everyone in the course.

Part IV. Preview of Chap. 2

Now that you have a good idea of what research is, at least of what we believe research is, the next step is to think about how to actually begin doing research. This means how to begin formulating, testing, and revising hypotheses. As for all phases of scientific inquiry, there are lots of things to think about. Because it is critical to start well, we devote Chap. 2 to getting started with formulating hypotheses.

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Weis, L., Eisenhart, M., Duncan, G. J., Albro, E., Bueschel, A. C., Cobb, P., Eccles, J., Mendenhall, R., Moss, P., Penuel, W., Ream, R. K., Rumbaut, R. G., Sloane, F., Weisner, T. S., & Wilson, J. (2019a). Mixed methods for studies that address broad and enduring issues in education research. Teachers College Record, 121 , 100307.

Weisner, T. S. (Ed.). (2005). Discovering successful pathways in children’s development: Mixed methods in the study of childhood and family life . University of Chicago Press.

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Have you ever wondered what it means to “follow the science?” Sometimes it may seem like what’s true one day changes the next. But when what we know changes, it often means science is working.

Research helps us understand the world through careful testing. Each advance builds on past discoveries. This process can take a long time. But the end result is a better understanding of the world around us.

In general, the scientific process follows many steps. First, scientists start with a question. They look at past research to see what others have learned. Different scientists have diverse skills and training. They each bring their own approaches and ideas. And they design new experiments to test their ideas.

Next, scientists perform their experiments and collect data. Then, they evaluate what their findings might mean. This often leads them to new questions and ideas to test.

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It’s natural to want answers. But it’s important not to draw conclusions based on a single study. Scientists start to form conclusions only after looking at many studies over time. Sometimes, even these conclusions change with more evidence. Science is an evolving process. But it’s the best way we have to seek out answers.

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  • 2.1 Why Is Research Important?
  • Introduction
  • 1.1 What Is Psychology?
  • 1.2 History of Psychology
  • 1.3 Contemporary Psychology
  • 1.4 Careers in Psychology
  • Review Questions
  • Critical Thinking Questions
  • Personal Application Questions
  • 2.2 Approaches to Research
  • 2.3 Analyzing Findings
  • 3.1 Human Genetics
  • 3.2 Cells of the Nervous System
  • 3.3 Parts of the Nervous System
  • 3.4 The Brain and Spinal Cord
  • 3.5 The Endocrine System
  • 4.1 What Is Consciousness?
  • 4.2 Sleep and Why We Sleep
  • 4.3 Stages of Sleep
  • 4.4 Sleep Problems and Disorders
  • 4.5 Substance Use and Abuse
  • 4.6 Other States of Consciousness
  • 5.1 Sensation versus Perception
  • 5.2 Waves and Wavelengths
  • 5.4 Hearing
  • 5.5 The Other Senses
  • 5.6 Gestalt Principles of Perception
  • 6.1 What Is Learning?
  • 6.2 Classical Conditioning
  • 6.3 Operant Conditioning
  • 6.4 Observational Learning (Modeling)
  • 7.1 What Is Cognition?
  • 7.2 Language
  • 7.3 Problem Solving
  • 7.4 What Are Intelligence and Creativity?
  • 7.5 Measures of Intelligence
  • 7.6 The Source of Intelligence
  • 8.1 How Memory Functions
  • 8.2 Parts of the Brain Involved with Memory
  • 8.3 Problems with Memory
  • 8.4 Ways to Enhance Memory
  • 9.1 What Is Lifespan Development?
  • 9.2 Lifespan Theories
  • 9.3 Stages of Development
  • 9.4 Death and Dying
  • 10.1 Motivation
  • 10.2 Hunger and Eating
  • 10.3 Sexual Behavior, Sexuality, and Gender Identity
  • 10.4 Emotion
  • 11.1 What Is Personality?
  • 11.2 Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective
  • 11.3 Neo-Freudians: Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney
  • 11.4 Learning Approaches
  • 11.5 Humanistic Approaches
  • 11.6 Biological Approaches
  • 11.7 Trait Theorists
  • 11.8 Cultural Understandings of Personality
  • 11.9 Personality Assessment
  • 12.1 What Is Social Psychology?
  • 12.2 Self-presentation
  • 12.3 Attitudes and Persuasion
  • 12.4 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
  • 12.5 Prejudice and Discrimination
  • 12.6 Aggression
  • 12.7 Prosocial Behavior
  • 13.1 What Is Industrial and Organizational Psychology?
  • 13.2 Industrial Psychology: Selecting and Evaluating Employees
  • 13.3 Organizational Psychology: The Social Dimension of Work
  • 13.4 Human Factors Psychology and Workplace Design
  • 14.1 What Is Stress?
  • 14.2 Stressors
  • 14.3 Stress and Illness
  • 14.4 Regulation of Stress
  • 14.5 The Pursuit of Happiness
  • 15.1 What Are Psychological Disorders?
  • 15.2 Diagnosing and Classifying Psychological Disorders
  • 15.3 Perspectives on Psychological Disorders
  • 15.4 Anxiety Disorders
  • 15.5 Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
  • 15.6 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
  • 15.7 Mood and Related Disorders
  • 15.8 Schizophrenia
  • 15.9 Dissociative Disorders
  • 15.10 Disorders in Childhood
  • 15.11 Personality Disorders
  • 16.1 Mental Health Treatment: Past and Present
  • 16.2 Types of Treatment
  • 16.3 Treatment Modalities
  • 16.4 Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders: A Special Case
  • 16.5 The Sociocultural Model and Therapy Utilization

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Explain how scientific research addresses questions about behavior
  • Discuss how scientific research guides public policy
  • Appreciate how scientific research can be important in making personal decisions

Scientific research is a critical tool for successfully navigating our complex world. Without it, we would be forced to rely solely on intuition, other people’s authority, and blind luck. While many of us feel confident in our abilities to decipher and interact with the world around us, history is filled with examples of how very wrong we can be when we fail to recognize the need for evidence in supporting claims. At various times in history, we would have been certain that the sun revolved around a flat earth, that the earth’s continents did not move, and that mental illness was caused by possession ( Figure 2.2 ). It is through systematic scientific research that we divest ourselves of our preconceived notions and superstitions and gain an objective understanding of ourselves and our world.

The goal of all scientists is to better understand the world around them. Psychologists focus their attention on understanding behavior, as well as the cognitive (mental) and physiological (body) processes that underlie behavior. In contrast to other methods that people use to understand the behavior of others, such as intuition and personal experience, the hallmark of scientific research is that there is evidence to support a claim. Scientific knowledge is empirical : It is grounded in objective, tangible evidence that can be observed time and time again, regardless of who is observing.

While behavior is observable, the mind is not. If someone is crying, we can see behavior. However, the reason for the behavior is more difficult to determine. Is the person crying due to being sad, in pain, or happy? Sometimes we can learn the reason for someone’s behavior by simply asking a question, like “Why are you crying?” However, there are situations in which an individual is either uncomfortable or unwilling to answer the question honestly, or is incapable of answering. For example, infants would not be able to explain why they are crying. In such circumstances, the psychologist must be creative in finding ways to better understand behavior. This chapter explores how scientific knowledge is generated, and how important that knowledge is in forming decisions in our personal lives and in the public domain.

Use of Research Information

Trying to determine which theories are and are not accepted by the scientific community can be difficult, especially in an area of research as broad as psychology. More than ever before, we have an incredible amount of information at our fingertips, and a simple internet search on any given research topic might result in a number of contradictory studies. In these cases, we are witnessing the scientific community going through the process of reaching a consensus, and it could be quite some time before a consensus emerges. For example, the explosion in our use of technology has led researchers to question whether this ultimately helps or hinders us. The use and implementation of technology in educational settings has become widespread over the last few decades. Researchers are coming to different conclusions regarding the use of technology. To illustrate this point, a study investigating a smartphone app targeting surgery residents (graduate students in surgery training) found that the use of this app can increase student engagement and raise test scores (Shaw & Tan, 2015). Conversely, another study found that the use of technology in undergraduate student populations had negative impacts on sleep, communication, and time management skills (Massimini & Peterson, 2009). Until sufficient amounts of research have been conducted, there will be no clear consensus on the effects that technology has on a student's acquisition of knowledge, study skills, and mental health.

In the meantime, we should strive to think critically about the information we encounter by exercising a degree of healthy skepticism. When someone makes a claim, we should examine the claim from a number of different perspectives: what is the expertise of the person making the claim, what might they gain if the claim is valid, does the claim seem justified given the evidence, and what do other researchers think of the claim? This is especially important when we consider how much information in advertising campaigns and on the internet claims to be based on “scientific evidence” when in actuality it is a belief or perspective of just a few individuals trying to sell a product or draw attention to their perspectives.

We should be informed consumers of the information made available to us because decisions based on this information have significant consequences. One such consequence can be seen in politics and public policy. Imagine that you have been elected as the governor of your state. One of your responsibilities is to manage the state budget and determine how to best spend your constituents’ tax dollars. As the new governor, you need to decide whether to continue funding early intervention programs. These programs are designed to help children who come from low-income backgrounds, have special needs, or face other disadvantages. These programs may involve providing a wide variety of services to maximize the children's development and position them for optimal levels of success in school and later in life (Blann, 2005). While such programs sound appealing, you would want to be sure that they also proved effective before investing additional money in these programs. Fortunately, psychologists and other scientists have conducted vast amounts of research on such programs and, in general, the programs are found to be effective (Neil & Christensen, 2009; Peters-Scheffer, Didden, Korzilius, & Sturmey, 2011). While not all programs are equally effective, and the short-term effects of many such programs are more pronounced, there is reason to believe that many of these programs produce long-term benefits for participants (Barnett, 2011). If you are committed to being a good steward of taxpayer money, you would want to look at research. Which programs are most effective? What characteristics of these programs make them effective? Which programs promote the best outcomes? After examining the research, you would be best equipped to make decisions about which programs to fund.

Link to Learning

Watch this video about early childhood program effectiveness to learn how scientists evaluate effectiveness and how best to invest money into programs that are most effective.

Ultimately, it is not just politicians who can benefit from using research in guiding their decisions. We all might look to research from time to time when making decisions in our lives. Imagine that your sister, Maria, expresses concern about her two-year-old child, Umberto. Umberto does not speak as much or as clearly as the other children in his daycare or others in the family. Umberto's pediatrician undertakes some screening and recommends an evaluation by a speech pathologist, but does not refer Maria to any other specialists. Maria is concerned that Umberto's speech delays are signs of a developmental disorder, but Umberto's pediatrician does not; she sees indications of differences in Umberto's jaw and facial muscles. Hearing this, you do some internet searches, but you are overwhelmed by the breadth of information and the wide array of sources. You see blog posts, top-ten lists, advertisements from healthcare providers, and recommendations from several advocacy organizations. Why are there so many sites? Which are based in research, and which are not?

In the end, research is what makes the difference between facts and opinions. Facts are observable realities, and opinions are personal judgments, conclusions, or attitudes that may or may not be accurate. In the scientific community, facts can be established only using evidence collected through empirical research.

NOTABLE RESEARCHERS

Psychological research has a long history involving important figures from diverse backgrounds. While the introductory chapter discussed several researchers who made significant contributions to the discipline, there are many more individuals who deserve attention in considering how psychology has advanced as a science through their work ( Figure 2.3 ). For instance, Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939) was the first woman to earn a PhD in psychology. Her research focused on animal behavior and cognition (Margaret Floy Washburn, PhD, n.d.). Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930) was a preeminent first-generation American psychologist who opposed the behaviorist movement, conducted significant research into memory, and established one of the earliest experimental psychology labs in the United States (Mary Whiton Calkins, n.d.).

Francis Sumner (1895–1954) was the first African American to receive a PhD in psychology in 1920. His dissertation focused on issues related to psychoanalysis. Sumner also had research interests in racial bias and educational justice. Sumner was one of the founders of Howard University’s department of psychology, and because of his accomplishments, he is sometimes referred to as the “Father of Black Psychology.” Thirteen years later, Inez Beverly Prosser (1895–1934) became the first African American woman to receive a PhD in psychology. Prosser’s research highlighted issues related to education in segregated versus integrated schools, and ultimately, her work was very influential in the hallmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional (Ethnicity and Health in America Series: Featured Psychologists, n.d.).

Although the establishment of psychology’s scientific roots occurred first in Europe and the United States, it did not take much time until researchers from around the world began to establish their own laboratories and research programs. For example, some of the first experimental psychology laboratories in South America were founded by Horatio Piñero (1869–1919) at two institutions in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Godoy & Brussino, 2010). In India, Gunamudian David Boaz (1908–1965) and Narendra Nath Sen Gupta (1889–1944) established the first independent departments of psychology at the University of Madras and the University of Calcutta, respectively. These developments provided an opportunity for Indian researchers to make important contributions to the field (Gunamudian David Boaz, n.d.; Narendra Nath Sen Gupta, n.d.).

When the American Psychological Association (APA) was first founded in 1892, all of the members were White males (Women and Minorities in Psychology, n.d.). However, by 1905, Mary Whiton Calkins was elected as the first female president of the APA, and by 1946, nearly one-quarter of American psychologists were female. Psychology became a popular degree option for students enrolled in the nation’s historically Black higher education institutions, increasing the number of Black Americans who went on to become psychologists. Given demographic shifts occurring in the United States and increased access to higher educational opportunities among historically underrepresented populations, there is reason to hope that the diversity of the field will increasingly match the larger population, and that the research contributions made by the psychologists of the future will better serve people of all backgrounds (Women and Minorities in Psychology, n.d.).

The Process of Scientific Research

Scientific knowledge is advanced through a process known as the scientific method . Basically, ideas (in the form of theories and hypotheses) are tested against the real world (in the form of empirical observations), and those empirical observations lead to more ideas that are tested against the real world, and so on. In this sense, the scientific process is circular. The types of reasoning within the circle are called deductive and inductive. In deductive reasoning , ideas are tested in the real world; in inductive reasoning , real-world observations lead to new ideas ( Figure 2.4 ). These processes are inseparable, like inhaling and exhaling, but different research approaches place different emphasis on the deductive and inductive aspects.

In the scientific context, deductive reasoning begins with a generalization—one hypothesis—that is then used to reach logical conclusions about the real world. If the hypothesis is correct, then the logical conclusions reached through deductive reasoning should also be correct. A deductive reasoning argument might go something like this: All living things require energy to survive (this would be your hypothesis). Ducks are living things. Therefore, ducks require energy to survive (logical conclusion). In this example, the hypothesis is correct; therefore, the conclusion is correct as well. Sometimes, however, an incorrect hypothesis may lead to a logical but incorrect conclusion. Consider this argument: all ducks are born with the ability to see. Quackers is a duck. Therefore, Quackers was born with the ability to see. Scientists use deductive reasoning to empirically test their hypotheses. Returning to the example of the ducks, researchers might design a study to test the hypothesis that if all living things require energy to survive, then ducks will be found to require energy to survive.

Deductive reasoning starts with a generalization that is tested against real-world observations; however, inductive reasoning moves in the opposite direction. Inductive reasoning uses empirical observations to construct broad generalizations. Unlike deductive reasoning, conclusions drawn from inductive reasoning may or may not be correct, regardless of the observations on which they are based. For instance, you may notice that your favorite fruits—apples, bananas, and oranges—all grow on trees; therefore, you assume that all fruit must grow on trees. This would be an example of inductive reasoning, and, clearly, the existence of strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi demonstrate that this generalization is not correct despite it being based on a number of direct observations. Scientists use inductive reasoning to formulate theories, which in turn generate hypotheses that are tested with deductive reasoning. In the end, science involves both deductive and inductive processes.

For example, case studies, which you will read about in the next section, are heavily weighted on the side of empirical observations. Thus, case studies are closely associated with inductive processes as researchers gather massive amounts of observations and seek interesting patterns (new ideas) in the data. Experimental research, on the other hand, puts great emphasis on deductive reasoning.

We’ve stated that theories and hypotheses are ideas, but what sort of ideas are they, exactly? A theory is a well-developed set of ideas that propose an explanation for observed phenomena. Theories are repeatedly checked against the world, but they tend to be too complex to be tested all at once; instead, researchers create hypotheses to test specific aspects of a theory.

A hypothesis is a testable prediction about how the world will behave if our idea is correct, and it is often worded as an if-then statement (e.g., if I study all night, I will get a passing grade on the test). The hypothesis is extremely important because it bridges the gap between the realm of ideas and the real world. As specific hypotheses are tested, theories are modified and refined to reflect and incorporate the result of these tests Figure 2.5 .

To see how this process works, let’s consider a specific theory and a hypothesis that might be generated from that theory. As you’ll learn in a later chapter, the James-Lange theory of emotion asserts that emotional experience relies on the physiological arousal associated with the emotional state. If you walked out of your home and discovered a very aggressive snake waiting on your doorstep, your heart would begin to race and your stomach churn. According to the James-Lange theory, these physiological changes would result in your feeling of fear. A hypothesis that could be derived from this theory might be that a person who is unaware of the physiological arousal that the sight of the snake elicits will not feel fear.

A scientific hypothesis is also falsifiable , or capable of being shown to be incorrect. Recall from the introductory chapter that Sigmund Freud had lots of interesting ideas to explain various human behaviors ( Figure 2.6 ). However, a major criticism of Freud’s theories is that many of his ideas are not falsifiable; for example, it is impossible to imagine empirical observations that would disprove the existence of the id, the ego, and the superego—the three elements of personality described in Freud’s theories. Despite this, Freud’s theories are widely taught in introductory psychology texts because of their historical significance for personality psychology and psychotherapy, and these remain the root of all modern forms of therapy.

In contrast, the James-Lange theory does generate falsifiable hypotheses, such as the one described above. Some individuals who suffer significant injuries to their spinal columns are unable to feel the bodily changes that often accompany emotional experiences. Therefore, we could test the hypothesis by determining how emotional experiences differ between individuals who have the ability to detect these changes in their physiological arousal and those who do not. In fact, this research has been conducted and while the emotional experiences of people deprived of an awareness of their physiological arousal may be less intense, they still experience emotion (Chwalisz, Diener, & Gallagher, 1988).

Scientific research’s dependence on falsifiability allows for great confidence in the information that it produces. Typically, by the time information is accepted by the scientific community, it has been tested repeatedly.

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Why do research.

Research allows you to pursue your interests, to learn something new, to hone your problem-solving skills and to challenge yourself in new ways. Working on a faculty-initiated research project gives you the opportunity work closely with a mentor–a faculty member or other experienced researcher. With a self-initiated research project, you leave the University of Montana with a product that represents the distillation of your interests and studies, and possibly, a real contribution to knowledge.

Why should you consider getting involved in research and creative scholarship:

  • Gain hands-on experience completing a research or creative project.
  • Work closely with a faculty mentor and have the opportunity to connect with other faculty and other student researchers who work in your area of interest.
  • Earn academic credit, scholarships, stipends and/or other awards for having conducted research.
  • Hone your leadership and teamwork skills as you collaborate with others.
  • Gain academic credentials that will help create a well-rounded resume, publishing your work and working with a research team.
  • Learn valuable life skills for life and class such as professionalism, time management, learning how to use online research tools.
  • Learn valuable skills for life and class (professionalism, time management, multi-tasking, online research tools).
  • Learn to effectively communicate your ideas and how to analyze and critique the work of others.
  • Assisting in research gives you hands-on experience in your field.
  • You gain a deeper understanding of the scientific process... develop research questions and form and test your hypotheses.
  • You learn what it’s like to work in a lab and learn about the planning of experiments, writing grants and how to report findings.
  • You can get paid. Sometimes as an employee and sometimes as a scholarship
  • You can publish your work. If you help a faculty member they will mention your work, or you
  • An excellent opportunity to develop relationships with faculty members who work in your area of interest and make connections with other students working on research. You will build a strong working relationship with a faculty mentor and be able to ask for a letter of recommendation.
  • An opportunity to hone your leadership and teamwork skills as you collaborate with others.
  • Opportunity to discover new knowledge and expand about what you already know.
  • Create a well-rounded resume--you will show "hands-on" experience. You know how to produce results.

You should try to take advantage of every opportunity to make the most of your college experience. Engaging in projects, whether in a laboratory, a library, a music or art studio, or elsewhere, is a good way of developing your talents and abilities, finding out the kind of work you are good at, and preparing for graduate study or a career. Such projects often lead to presentations at professional conferences, which can be a great asset as you apply for graduate school, scholarships, or even jobs.

Every field of study has its own research problems and methods. As a researcher, you seek answers to questions of great interest to you. Your research problem could be aesthetic, social, political, scientific or technical. You choose the tools, gather and analyze the data, and report your findings to a wider audience.

What is it like to do research?

The research experience varies greatly. You might work alone, or in a large team. You could conduct your research in a library, a museum, a laboratory, or a community. 

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Research Makes for Better Doctors, Benefits Patients

Research helps create good doctors because they are better able to critically evaluate new evidence and provide the best patient care with the latest knowledge.

By Wendy Sarubbi | April 2, 2019

how does research help you

Research doesn’t end when students graduate. Conducting research keeps practicing engineers, emergency management operators and doctors current on new techniques and allows them to discover best practices that can impact entire industries.

That’s why medical residents continue to conduct research once they are treating patients in hospitals.

The leaders of the UCF/HCA consortium residency programs in Central and North Florida say research and other scholarly activity create scientific knowledge and help physicians share best practices, which is why they emphasize it as part of their programs.

It’s no surprise those residents conducted more than 300 scholarly research projects in the last year – scholarly work that residency leaders say is making the young doctors better caregivers.

“Scholarly activities and research help our physicians learn how to critically evaluate the scientific literature and medical studies,” says Hale Toklu, director of graduate medical education research for the North Florida Division.

UCF’s associate dean for graduate medical education Diane Davey agrees.

“Research helps you become a better physician because you are able to more critically evaluate new evidence and provide the best patient care,” Davey says. “Physicians experienced in research will be able design high quality patient safety and quality improvement studies in their own practices in the future.”

A recent report about the consortium’s research efforts showed that from 2017 to 2018, UCF-HCA residents in the North Florida Division increased their scientific efforts four-fold. In 2018, those physicians-in-training conducted 324 research projects. Twenty percent of those studies were published in medical journals or books and 43 percent were presented at a scientific meeting. About half of those studies are ongoing.

Some residents conducted case reports highlighting and researching a unique or unusual case they treated. Others conducted quality control studies on ways to improve patient outcomes. Others did research using HCA’s national patient database. With more than 34 million patient encounters a year at 179 HCA hospitals in 21 states, HCA’s database has been the foundation for nationwide studies, including a landmark 2013 study that reduced potentially deadly MRSA infections by 44 percent in hospital intensive care units.

Matthew Calestino, who leads the consortium’s Transitional Year residency at North Florida Regional in Gainesville, organized the first annual North Florida Chapter SHM Scientific Symposium in Jacksonville recently. The SHM represents those who care for hospitalized patients – including physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners and hospital administrators — and is focused on improving the quality of in-patient care.

UCF/HCA residents Hiren Patel and Jake Cho won the top two poster awards. Research posters at the event came from the Internal Medicine residents at the University of Florida’s Jacksonville location, Orange Park Medical Center, Ocala Regional Medical Center, Oak Hill Hospital and the greater Orlando program anchored at Osceola Regional Medical Center as well as the Internal Medicine, Transitional Year and Psychiatry residents from North Florida Regional Medical Center.

In 2018, the recent report showed, North Florida Regional Medical Center led all UCF-HCA consortium locations with its number of research projects, and the internal medicine program headed by Christopher Bray had the highest number in the consortium.

Toklu says research during residency is associated with superior clinical performance. By doing research and participating in scholarly activities, young physicians gain insight into how diseases progress, preventative medicine and differential diagnosis. That means patients will benefit.

The UCF College of Medicine and HCA’s North Florida Division offer residency programs at Osceola, Ocala and North Florida regional medical centers and will soon begin residencies at West Florida Hospital in Pensacola. The Orlando VA Medical Center also participates in several of the programs.

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how does research help you

how does research help you

How does research impact your everyday life?

How does research impact your everyday life?

“Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.” – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

What would the modern world look like without the bedrock of research?

First and foremost – without research, there’s no way you’d possibly be reading this right now, as the Internet was pioneered and developed (via a whole heap of exhaustive research…) by the European Organization for Nuclear Research , or CERN, the same association that produced the Large Hadron Collider.

Without research, we’d likely also be utterly defenceless to the brutal forces of nature. For example, without meteorology, we’d be unable to predict the path of violent storms, hurricanes and tornadoes, while a lack of volcanology research would leave a huge proportion of the world susceptible to the destruction of volcanic eruptions.

And it doesn’t end there.

Medical technology and discovery would be non-existent – no MRi , no anaesthetic, no birth control, no X-Ray machine, no insulin, no IVF, no penicillin, no germ theory, no DNA, and no smallpox vaccination – which, by the way would have wiped out one out of every nine babies had Jenner not researched and found a cure.

how does research help you

Source: University of Surrey

So not only is research an invaluable tool for building on crucial knowledge, it’s also the most reliable way we can begin to understand the complexities of various issues; to maintain our integrity as we disprove lies and uphold important truths; to serve as the seed for analysing convoluted sets of data; as well as to serve as ‘nourishment’, or exercise for the mind.

“…Aside from the pure pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, research is linked to problem solving,” John Armstrong, a respected global higher education and research professional, writes for The Conversation. “What this means is the solving of other people’s problems. That is, what other people experience as problems.

“It starts with a tenderness and ambition that is directed at the needs of others – as they recognise and acknowledge those needs,” he continues. “This is, in effect, entry into a market place. Much research, of course, is conducted in precisely this way beyond the walls of the academy.”

Ultimately, when we begin to look at research for what it truly is – a catalyst for solving complex issues – we begin to understand the impact it truly has on our everyday lives. The University of Surrey , set just a 10 minute walk from the centre of Guildford – ranked the 8 th best place to live in the UK in the Halifax Quality of Life Survey – is a prime example of a university producing high-impact research for the benefit of our global society.

Surrey’s experienced research team found that pollution levels inside cars were found to be up to 40 percent higher while sitting in queues, or at red lights, when compared to free-flowing traffic conditions. And with the World Health Organisation (WHO) placing outdoor air pollution among the top 10 health risks currently facing humans, linking to seven million premature deaths each year, Surrey took on the research challenge of finding an effective solution…

…And boy, did they get the results!

“Where possible and the weather conditional allowing, it is one of the best ways to limit your exposure by keeping windows shut, fans turned off and to try and increase the distance between you and the car in front while at traffic jams or stationary at traffic lights,” says Dr Prashant Kumar, Senior Author of the study. “If the fan or heater needs to be on, the best setting would be to have the air re-circulating within the car without drawing air from outdoors.”

Researchers actually found that closed windows or re-circulated air can reduce in-car pollutants by as much as 76 percent, highlighting how Surrey’s research outcomes could bring a wealth of invaluable global benefits.

As further testament to Surrey’s impactful research success, a study that uncovered high levels of Vitamin D inadequacy among UK adolescents has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , and has now been used to inform crucial national guidance from Public Health England.

how does research help you

“The research has found that adolescence, the time when bone growth is most important in laying down the foundations for later life, is a time when Vitamin D levels are inadequate,” says Dr Taryn Smith, Lead Author of the study. The study forms part of a four-year, EU-funded project, ODIN, which aims to investigate safe and effective ways of boosting Vitamin D intake through food fortification and bio-fortification.

“The ODIN project is investigating ways of improving Vitamin D intake through diet,” continues Dr Smith, “and since it is difficult to obtain Vitamin D intakes of over 10ug/day from food sources alone, it is looking at ways of fortifying our food to improve the Vitamin D levels of the UK population as a whole.”

But the impact of Surrey’s research is broad and all-encompassing, with on-going projects into things like radiotherapy, dementia, blue light and human attentiveness, disaster monitoring, sustainable development, digital storytelling, and beyond. And benefits of research produced at the University of Surrey is not meant for the UK population alone; these are the issues that face us as an increasingly international and interconnected society, making research produced by world-class institutions like Surrey the tools to pave the way to bigger, brighter and healthier global future.

Find out more about studying for a postgraduate degree at Surrey by registering for one of Surrey’s Webinars .

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10 Reasons Why Research is Important

No matter what career field you’re in or how high up you are, there’s always more to learn . The same applies to your personal life. No matter how many experiences you have or how diverse your social circle, there are things you don’t know. Research unlocks the unknowns, lets you explore the world from different perspectives, and fuels a deeper understanding. In some areas, research is an essential part of success. In others, it may not be absolutely necessary, but it has many benefits. Here are ten reasons why research is important:

#1. Research expands your knowledge base

The most obvious reason to do research is that you’ll learn more. There’s always more to learn about a topic, even if you are already well-versed in it. If you aren’t, research allows you to build on any personal experience you have with the subject. The process of research opens up new opportunities for learning and growth.

#2. Research gives you the latest information

Research encourages you to find the most recent information available . In certain fields, especially scientific ones, there’s always new information and discoveries being made. Staying updated prevents you from falling behind and giving info that’s inaccurate or doesn’t paint the whole picture. With the latest info, you’ll be better equipped to talk about a subject and build on ideas.

#3. Research helps you know what you’re up against

In business, you’ll have competition. Researching your competitors and what they’re up to helps you formulate your plans and strategies. You can figure out what sets you apart. In other types of research, like medicine, your research might identify diseases, classify symptoms, and come up with ways to tackle them. Even if your “enemy” isn’t an actual person or competitor, there’s always some kind of antagonist force or problem that research can help you deal with.

#4. Research builds your credibility

People will take what you have to say more seriously when they can tell you’re informed. Doing research gives you a solid foundation on which you can build your ideas and opinions. You can speak with confidence about what you know is accurate. When you’ve done the research, it’s much harder for someone to poke holes in what you’re saying. Your research should be focused on the best sources. If your “research” consists of opinions from non-experts, you won’t be very credible. When your research is good, though, people are more likely to pay attention.

#5. Research helps you narrow your scope

When you’re circling a topic for the first time, you might not be exactly sure where to start. Most of the time, the amount of work ahead of you is overwhelming. Whether you’re writing a paper or formulating a business plan, it’s important to narrow the scope at some point. Research helps you identify the most unique and/or important themes. You can choose the themes that fit best with the project and its goals.

#6. Research teaches you better discernment

Doing a lot of research helps you sift through low-quality and high-quality information. The more research you do on a topic, the better you’ll get at discerning what’s accurate and what’s not. You’ll also get better at discerning the gray areas where information may be technically correct but used to draw questionable conclusions.

#7. Research introduces you to new ideas

You may already have opinions and ideas about a topic when you start researching. The more you research, the more viewpoints you’ll come across. This encourages you to entertain new ideas and perhaps take a closer look at yours. You might change your mind about something or, at least, figure out how to position your ideas as the best ones.

#8. Research helps with problem-solving

Whether it’s a personal or professional problem, it helps to look outside yourself for help. Depending on what the issue is, your research can focus on what others have done before. You might just need more information, so you can make an informed plan of attack and an informed decision. When you know you’ve collected good information, you’ll feel much more confident in your solution.

#9. Research helps you reach people

Research is used to help raise awareness of issues like climate change , racial discrimination, gender inequality , and more. Without hard facts, it’s very difficult to prove that climate change is getting worse or that gender inequality isn’t progressing as quickly as it should. The public needs to know what the facts are, so they have a clear idea of what “getting worse” or “not progressing” actually means. Research also entails going beyond the raw data and sharing real-life stories that have a more personal impact on people.

#10. Research encourages curiosity

Having curiosity and a love of learning take you far in life. Research opens you up to different opinions and new ideas. It also builds discerning and analytical skills. The research process rewards curiosity. When you’re committed to learning, you’re always in a place of growth. Curiosity is also good for your health. Studies show curiosity is associated with higher levels of positivity, better satisfaction with life, and lower anxiety.

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A student’s guide to undergraduate research

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Originally written by Shiwei Wang for Nature journal in March 2019.

Participating in original research during your undergraduate studies can greatly expand your learning experience. However, finding the project can be a challenging task, so here’s a short but comprehensive guide that can help you get the most out of an undergraduate research opportunity.

Choose the right lab

Learn to think like a scientist. A lot of people start their undergraduate research by glancing at the faculty list and e-mailing multiple professors whose work seems interesting. Although this might get you a position somewhere, it is not the most effective approach. Before looking at labs, dive into the science to find out which areas fascinate you. Read a lot, go to talks, and talk to your professors not just about their classes, but about science in general as well.

Subscribe to e-mail newsletters from journals such as Nature and Science. Try to read research highlights and science news regularly. Podcasts and articles by, for example, Nature, Science, Scientific American or Quanta can also be interesting sources of information. Follow academics, journals and universities on Twitter. Start your undergraduate research by learning more about science, thinking like a scientist and working out what you love.

Look for questions, not subjects. You might have chosen a major to study, but don’t let this limit your search for research labs. Modern labs are interdisciplinary and very different from what you do in undergrad labs. Instead of limiting your search to your department, try to look at labs in all related departments. Choose labs on the basis of the questions they’re trying to answer.

Mentoring is as important as research. Contact group members to learn about your prospective laboratory’s environment. Are the group members close? Is the lab friendly or competitive and condescending? Is the lab head hands-off or hands-on? The size of the group is also important. If you join a small group, you’ll have a higher chance of being mentored directly by your principal investigator, whereas in a big group, you are more likely to be mentored by a postdoctoral researcher or graduate student.

Reach out with confidence. Once you’ve determined that the research programme interests you and the group dynamic is healthy, send the principal investigator an e-mail. Make sure to explain why you’re interested in working in the lab and that you have spoken to other lab members. Be patient if they don’t reply. If you don’t receive a response after a week or so, send a second e-mail or reach out in other ways, such as by asking group members to enquire for you.

how does research help you

Get the most out of the experience

Start your research with reading, and keep on reading. Usually, the principal investigator will assign you a mentor and a project. Ask for literature to read: learning about the state of the field and why the work is important will help you to push the project forward. Read about your field as well as other, totally unrelated fields. As an undergraduate, you have the freedom to change your major and your future plans. Make sure to strike a balance between reading and conducting experiments. It’s hard to do both at the same time, but it will make you a better scientist.

Set specific goals for yourself and let your mentors know. Think about what you want from your research and how much time you are willing to put in. Besides learning the techniques, do you want to learn how to analyse results and design experiments? Do you want to learn how to write proposals by applying for undergraduate research grants? Do you want to improve your presentation skills by going to conferences? Do you want to potentially finish a project for publication? Working out what you want to achieve will help you to direct your time effectively.

Research takes time. Don’t blame yourself if experiments don’t work or the project is not moving forward as fast as you expected. Science is about failing and trying again. Getting used to and coping with frustration is part of the learning curve of research.

Find a healthy balance. University is already a lot of work, and research will only take up more time. When planning your schedule, try to allocate large blocks of time (whole afternoons or individual days) to research. Rushing through a procedure could be unsafe and will often produce useless results. Always plan extra time for experiments. Consider working less in the lab during exam weeks so you don’t get overwhelmed. Talk to your mentor about your schedule and feelings regularly, so that you can arrange experiments at times that suit you, and you can keep on top of your mental health.

Find financial support. If you wish to do research at your own institution over the summer, your institution might offer funding to cover your expenses. If you want to go to another university, you can apply for funding from that institution’s undergraduate research programme, or from foundations, companies or academic societies. For example, the US National Science Foundation offers a Research Experiences for Undergraduates programme. Universities, foundations and academic societies might also offer grants to cover your travel expense to various conferences. Don’t let money limit what you want to do. Talk to senior students or professors, or search online to find all the opportunities!

Always think about the big picture. Your undergraduate research doesn’t define what you’re going to do after your degree. Keep reading and taking classes outside your comfort zone. Explore and learn as much as possible. Working out what you love is the best preparation you can get for the rest of your career.

Read the full article on the Nature website.

To find a research opportunity at Johns Hopkins University, visit the Hopkins Office of Undergraduate Research website .

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Why all doctors should be involved in research

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  • Hannah Jacob , academic clinical fellow
  • 1 UCL Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH
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Neena Modi tells Hannah Jacob about her career in research and why this is a fundamental part of every doctor’s job

Neena Modi is president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and professor of neonatal medicine at Imperial College, London. She is a practising clinician and academic lead of a neonatal research programme focusing on nutritional and other perinatal determinants of lifelong metabolic health. After a period as vice president for science and research at the college, she was elected president in April 2015.

How did you become interested in research?

I realised that what I was being taught during my training was wrong, and my very enlightened consultant challenged me to design a trial to back my contention. There were no training posts in neonatal medicine when I started my paediatric training, but there were lots of opportunities to learn and undertake research because the rate of change was so great. That was really exciting.

Which research projects are you most proud of? Which do you think has had the biggest impact?

We did a series of studies to develop methods for measuring body water compartments in extremely preterm babies and to describe the postnatal alterations in fluid balance. We also tested the hypothesis that immediate sodium supplementation in babies with respiratory distress syndrome was harmful. That was a big achievement.

Most recently we have identified possible biological mechanisms that underpin the epidemiological associations between early onset of features of the metabolic syndrome and being born extremely preterm. That is of real interest as we learn more about the long term effects of extremely preterm birth.

How have you coped with the inevitable setbacks of a career in clinical research?

Real life is about being refused things and carrying on anyway, so I have developed resilience. There was no academic training route when I started out, so I have had to forge my own way. People will always tell you that it cannot be done. You have to pursue the things you are passionate about.

Do you have any advice for junior doctors interested in doing research?

Work out what interests you, and then find the person who is going to help you do it. Being approached by an enthusiastic junior doctor is always well received, and once you have found the right senior person they can support you in achieving your goals. Do not lose heart if you don’t get an academic training post as they are not the only way into research. Some of the best research students I have worked with have not come through the standard path.

What would you say to doctors who have no interest in doing research?

I would argue that they may not be thinking broadly enough about what research actually is. Every clinician is responsible for evaluating their own practice, and to do that in a robust and meaningful way you need to use the tools of research. We all need to be able to critically review research done by others. For example, the guidelines used in everyday clinical practice are based on meta-analyses and systematic reviews. So I think all doctors need to be involved in research in some way, and that may be different for different people.

How can undertaking research help doctors in their careers?

It’s not just a help, it’s essential. There are few absolutes in science, and without inquiring minds medicine will stand still. Participation in research enables doctors to evaluate their practice objectively and to be involved in advancing their discipline. You can learn so many skills that make you a better clinician around appraising the evidence and thinking critically about a situation.

What are the benefits and downsides of doing research—both on a personal and professional level?

The benefits come from knowing you are contributing to the science of medicine as well as the art, and are able to question, evaluate, and test different approaches objectively. Everyone has a role in supporting research—many will contribute, and some will be research leaders.

As for downsides, life has ups and downs, and research is no different. You have to not be too disheartened when a grant application gets rejected. When you want to achieve something, you have to keep speaking to the powers that be until you find someone who can be an advocate.

How do you juggle the research, clinical, and leadership aspects of your working life?

It is a balance that is evolving all the time and that provides me with a huge stimulus. Every time I have been presented with an opportunity I have had to evaluate its potential effect on the other components of my work. I always say yes to the things that interest me and follow my muse. We are very privileged as doctors to have such a range of tremendous opportunities available to us.

Do you have a particular philosophy that has guided you in your career?

When life offers you an opportunity, do not turn it down. I believe you must do what grabs your interest, and if you are still doing it years later you know you made the right decision. When you lose the excitement, it is time for a change. The future lies with junior doctors, and you can be a part of shaping it in the way you think is right.

Is there anything you would do differently if you had your career again?

I would have much greater confidence to fight for something I believed in.

Competing interests: I have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare that I am the academic officer for the Paediatric Educators Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

how does research help you

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  • Starting the research process

A Beginner's Guide to Starting the Research Process

Research process steps

When you have to write a thesis or dissertation , it can be hard to know where to begin, but there are some clear steps you can follow.

The research process often begins with a very broad idea for a topic you’d like to know more about. You do some preliminary research to identify a  problem . After refining your research questions , you can lay out the foundations of your research design , leading to a proposal that outlines your ideas and plans.

This article takes you through the first steps of the research process, helping you narrow down your ideas and build up a strong foundation for your research project.

Table of contents

Step 1: choose your topic, step 2: identify a problem, step 3: formulate research questions, step 4: create a research design, step 5: write a research proposal, other interesting articles.

First you have to come up with some ideas. Your thesis or dissertation topic can start out very broad. Think about the general area or field you’re interested in—maybe you already have specific research interests based on classes you’ve taken, or maybe you had to consider your topic when applying to graduate school and writing a statement of purpose .

Even if you already have a good sense of your topic, you’ll need to read widely to build background knowledge and begin narrowing down your ideas. Conduct an initial literature review to begin gathering relevant sources. As you read, take notes and try to identify problems, questions, debates, contradictions and gaps. Your aim is to narrow down from a broad area of interest to a specific niche.

Make sure to consider the practicalities: the requirements of your programme, the amount of time you have to complete the research, and how difficult it will be to access sources and data on the topic. Before moving onto the next stage, it’s a good idea to discuss the topic with your thesis supervisor.

>>Read more about narrowing down a research topic

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So you’ve settled on a topic and found a niche—but what exactly will your research investigate, and why does it matter? To give your project focus and purpose, you have to define a research problem .

The problem might be a practical issue—for example, a process or practice that isn’t working well, an area of concern in an organization’s performance, or a difficulty faced by a specific group of people in society.

Alternatively, you might choose to investigate a theoretical problem—for example, an underexplored phenomenon or relationship, a contradiction between different models or theories, or an unresolved debate among scholars.

To put the problem in context and set your objectives, you can write a problem statement . This describes who the problem affects, why research is needed, and how your research project will contribute to solving it.

>>Read more about defining a research problem

Next, based on the problem statement, you need to write one or more research questions . These target exactly what you want to find out. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research problem.

A strong research question should be specific enough that you can answer it thoroughly using appropriate qualitative or quantitative research methods. It should also be complex enough to require in-depth investigation, analysis, and argument. Questions that can be answered with “yes/no” or with easily available facts are not complex enough for a thesis or dissertation.

In some types of research, at this stage you might also have to develop a conceptual framework and testable hypotheses .

>>See research question examples

The research design is a practical framework for answering your research questions. It involves making decisions about the type of data you need, the methods you’ll use to collect and analyze it, and the location and timescale of your research.

There are often many possible paths you can take to answering your questions. The decisions you make will partly be based on your priorities. For example, do you want to determine causes and effects, draw generalizable conclusions, or understand the details of a specific context?

You need to decide whether you will use primary or secondary data and qualitative or quantitative methods . You also need to determine the specific tools, procedures, and materials you’ll use to collect and analyze your data, as well as your criteria for selecting participants or sources.

>>Read more about creating a research design

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how does research help you

Finally, after completing these steps, you are ready to complete a research proposal . The proposal outlines the context, relevance, purpose, and plan of your research.

As well as outlining the background, problem statement, and research questions, the proposal should also include a literature review that shows how your project will fit into existing work on the topic. The research design section describes your approach and explains exactly what you will do.

You might have to get the proposal approved by your supervisor before you get started, and it will guide the process of writing your thesis or dissertation.

>>Read more about writing a research proposal

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

  • Sampling methods
  • Simple random sampling
  • Stratified sampling
  • Cluster sampling
  • Likert scales
  • Reproducibility

 Statistics

  • Null hypothesis
  • Statistical power
  • Probability distribution
  • Effect size
  • Poisson distribution

Research bias

  • Optimism bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Implicit bias
  • Hawthorne effect
  • Anchoring bias
  • Explicit bias

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Importance Of Research In Daily Life

Whether we are students, professionals, or stay-at-home parents, we all need to do research on a daily basis.

The reason?

Research helps us make informed decisions.

It allows us to learn about new things, and it teaches us how to think critically.

There is an importance of research in daily life.

Let’s discuss the importance of research in our daily lives and how it can help us achieve our goals!

6 ways research plays an important role in our daily lives.

Research plays an important role in our daily lives

  • It leads to new discoveries and innovations that improve our lives. Many of the technologies we rely on today are the result of research in fields like medicine, computer science, engineering, etc. Things like smartphones, wifi, GPS, and medical treatments were made possible by research.
  • It informs policy making. Research provides data and evidence that allows policymakers to make more informed decisions on issues that impact society, whether it’s related to health, education, the economy, or other areas. Research gives insights into problems.
  • It spreads knowledge and awareness. The research contributes new information and facts to various fields and disciplines. The sharing of research educates people on new topics, ideas, social issues, etc. It provides context for understanding the world.
  • It drives progress and change. Research challenges existing notions, tests new theories and hypotheses, and pushes boundaries of what’s known. Pushing the frontiers of knowledge through research is key for advancement. Even when research invalidates ideas, it leads to progress.
  • It develops critical thinking skills. The research process itself – asking questions, collecting data, analyzing results, drawing conclusions – builds logic, problem-solving, and cognitive skills that benefit individuals in their professional and personal lives.
  • It fuels innovation and the economy. Research leads to the development of new products and services that create jobs and improve productivity in the marketplace. Private sector research drives economic growth.

So while not always visible, research underlies much of our technological, social, economic, and human progress. It’s a building block for society.

Importance Of Research In Daily Life

Conducting quality research and using it to maximum benefit is key.

Research is important in everyday life because it allows us to make informed decisions about the things that matter most to us.

Whether we’re researching a new car before making a purchase, studying for an important test, or looking into different treatment options for a health issue, research allows us to get the facts and make the best choices for ourselves and our families.

  • In today’s world, there’s so much information available at our fingertips, and research is more accessible than ever.
  • The internet has made it possible for anyone with an interest in doing research to access vast amounts of information in a short amount of time.

This is both a blessing and a curse; while it’s great that we have so much information available to us, it can be overwhelming to try to sort through everything and find the most reliable sources.

What is the importance of research in our daily life?

Research is essential to our daily lives.

Research provides data and evidence

  • It helps us to make informed decisions about everything from the food we eat to the medicines we take.
  • It also allows us to better understand the world around us and find solutions to problems.

In short, research is essential for our health, safety, and well-being. Without it, we would be living in a world of ignorance and misinformation.

What is the importance of research in our daily lives as a student?

Research allows us to make informed decisions

As a student, research plays an important role in our daily life. It helps us to gain knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

  • It also allows us to develop new skills and perspectives.
  • In addition, research helps us to innovate and create new things. 
  • Research is essential for students because it helps us to learn about the world around us. Without research, we would be limited to our own personal experiences and observations.
  • Research allows us to go beyond our personal bubble and explore new ideas and concepts.
  • It also gives us the opportunity to develop new skills and perspectives. 
  • In addition, research is important because it helps us to innovate and create new things. When we conduct research , we are constantly learning new information that can be used to create something new.

This could be anything from a new product or service to a new way of doing things.

Research is essential for students because it allows us to be innovative and create new things that can make a difference in the world.

Consequently, while each person’s daily life routine might differ based on their unique circumstances, the role that research plays in our lives as students is an integral one nonetheless.

Different though our routines might be, the value of research in our lives shines through brightly regardless.  And that importance cannot be overstated .

How does research affect your daily life?

a man studying and doing Practical Research

Every day, we benefit from the countless hours of research that have been conducted by scientists and scholars around the world.

  • From the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we rely on research to improve our lives in a variety of ways.
  • For instance, many of the items we use every day, such as our phones and laptops, are the result of years of research and development.
  • And when we see a news story about a new medical breakthrough or a natural disaster, it is often the result of research that has been conducted over a long period of time.

In short, research affects our daily lives in countless ways, both big and small. Without it, we would be living in a very different world.

What are the purposes of research?

Research contributes new information and facts to various fields and disciplines

The word “research” is used in a variety of ways. In its broadest sense, research includes any gathering of data, information, and facts for the advancement of knowledge.

Whether you are looking for a new recipe or trying to find a cure for cancer, the process of research is the same.

You start with a question or an area of interest and then use different sources to find information that will help you answer that question or learn more about that topic.

“The purpose of research is to find answers to questions, solve problems, or develop new knowledge.”

It is an essential tool in business , education, science, and many other fields. By conducting research, we can learn about the world around us and make it a better place.

How to do effective research 

Research is essential to our daily lives and growing

Research is a process of uncovering facts and information about a subject.

It is usually done when preparing for an assignment or project and can be either primary research, which involves collecting data yourself, or secondary research, which involves finding existing data.

Regardless of the type of research you do, there are some effective strategies that will help you get the most out of your efforts:

  • First, start by clearly defining your topic and what you hope to learn. This will help you to focus your search and find relevant information more quickly.
  • Once you know what you’re looking for, try using keyword searches to find websites, articles, and other resources that are relevant to your topic.
  • When evaluating each source, be sure to consider its reliability and biases.
  • Finally, take good notes as you read, and make sure to keep track of where each piece of information came from so that you can easily cite it later.

By following these steps, you can ensure that your research is both thorough and accurate.

How to use research to achieve your goals.

Achieving your goals requires careful planning and a lot of hard work.

But even the best-laid plans can sometimes go awry.

That’s where research comes in.

By taking the time to do your homework, you can increase your chances of success while also learning more about your topic of interest.

When it comes to goal-setting, research can help you to identify realistic targets and develop a roadmap for achieving them.

It can also provide valuable insights into potential obstacles and how to overcome them.

In short, research is an essential tool for anyone who wants to achieve their goals.

So if you’re serious about reaching your target, be sure to do your homework first.

So the next time you are faced with a decision, don’t forget to do your research!

It could very well be the most important thing you do all day.

Jacks of Science sources the most authoritative, trustworthy, and highly recognized institutions for our article research. Learn more about our Editorial Teams process and diligence in verifying the accuracy of every article we publish.

How to Get Research Experience

New section.

Working in a research setting can help make you a competitive medical school applicant and help you to determine if a career in medicine or medical research is right for you

male student working in chemistry lab

How do I find a research position?

If you’re currently in college, check with your institution’s science or undergraduate research websites for opportunities to assist with faculty research projects. You can also review faculty bio pages and lab websites for more information. Next, reach out to your immediate network: express your interest in assisting with a research project to your science professors, academic advisor, and your pre-health advisor.

Try exchanging ideas with your peers and upper-classmen for advice on research opportunities at your institution. You can also ask peer advisors, resident advisors, or any fellow premedical students for introductions to principal investigators (PIs). You might even try the “Undergrad-Grad-PI” method. This is where you first reach out to undergraduate students in research labs to learn about their responsibilities; they oftentimes are more responsive. Then, reach out to the graduate or post-doc students to learn about the research question being investigated. After this, read the most recent paper or abstract the lab published. Once you complete these steps, you can approach the PI more confidently and more effectively demonstrate your commitment to and understanding of their project.

Your school’s career center or student employment office may know about research job openings, and they can also offer resume help and go over interview tips and techniques. Remember, opportunities may be on or off campus, full- or part-time, paid or unpaid, or part of a summer program. Once you find a position, you can connect with your school’s fellowships or awards office to inquire about research funding opportunities.

If you’ve already graduated, consider looking into open positions. Research hospitals, universities, and biotech companies are always looking for lab technicians or clinical research coordinators (CRC). Job opportunities are typically posted on the career pages of their websites.

When should I begin gaining research experience in college?

Some premedical students begin their research experiences during their first year of college, and others begin research positions after they have already graduated. On average, most students secure a research position junior or senior year. There are three big factors that will impact this:

  • Your level of interest in pursuing research. If you are really excited to investigate a question under a mentor, you might find yourself reaching out to professors early and often. Other students may focus on gaining clinical experience, and therefore wait later in their academic career to start research.
  • Readiness for the research project. Different PIs will have different expectations for preparation. A research project might require you to first take coursework in basic lab sciences, statistics, or another advanced topic specific to the project. Other PIs may prefer to train you “on-the-job” through their graduate or post-doc students. This will impact when you are ready to join a project.
  • Finding the right research project. There is a process of reviewing different PIs and research projects to find the right fit for you. What subject do you want to investigate? Do you want your research project to take place in a lab or non-lab setting? Is there an independent question you want to investigate with the help of a mentor?

When is the best time to look for a position?

According to Kate Stutz, Ph.D., Director of Pre-Health Advising at Brandeis University, if you’re interested a research position during the academic year, the best time to look for positions is at the very beginning of the semester. There also tend to be a lot of research opportunities in the summer, both paid and volunteer, through set programs like the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs). It’s best to start applying for summer research positions in December-February for the upcoming summer. Remember, typically there are more applicants than available spots so get your applications in early. Each undergraduate institution will be different, therefore make sure to connect with your advisors and peers for feedback on when to start looking.

What’s the best way to apply?

The outreach email message that you send to potential research faculty is very important. This message should include a formal introduction of yourself, evidence that you are familiar with their research project(s), and a clear, specific ask. Identify what you hope to contribute to the project. Do you want to clean the glassware or analyze lab findings? Consider attaching your resume as well. Dr. Stutz stresses that networking and persistence are crucial to finding a position. Make sure you’re using all of your network, including your peers and professors, to find open positions. Don’t be afraid to send follow up emails; faculty are very busy and often overlook emails. Sometimes, it can be even more effective to stop by a professor’s office hours to hand deliver your materials and indicate your interest in person.

How should I prepare for an interview?

With any interview, it’s important to make a good impression. Be sure to dress appropriately. Come prepared with a resume. Use your campus career center for advice on proper attire and resume best practices.

Often during interviews, you’ll be asked about your career goals. It’s helpful to be able to speak about the steps you plan to take to meet those goals. Talk about classes you’ve taken, especially upper-level science courses. Speak about your skills, your knowledge of techniques, and the equipment you’ve used throughout your coursework. Be prepared to discuss the lab experiments you’ve completed. If you’ve done any sort of research—even in your coursework—keep track of it. This shows you have experience. Lastly, interviewers often ask candidates if they have any questions. Dr. Stutz suggests asking something that indicates you’ve done your own research into their project. You could ask where they see their research going in the next three years or what challenges they anticipate. You could also ask about expectations for undergraduate researchers; do they expect you to work 20+ hours a week? Full time over the summer? Do they require you to have work study or to sign up for research credits? Asking these questions ahead of time can help you plan ahead and determine if this position is the best fit for you. Check out these  interview resources  for more tips.

Does research experience have to be in a wet lab?

No! Research can be performed in any field or subject. We’ve had successful applicants with research in classics, sociology, history, and policy, as well as applicants with research in biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience. Medical schools value all types of research. Research can take place in a scientific lab that requires advanced devices and procedures to obtain data for analysis. Research can also take place in the humanities or social sciences where participant interviews or surveys are needed to obtain an individual's life perspective. The clinical research field is constantly investigating patient outcomes and how to improve care through clinical trials or analysis of patient data. As a premedical student, consider what question you want to investigate further. Do you want to learn more about how health inequities impact disadvantaged communities in your area, or perhaps you want to know more about the protein channels involved in memory cognition? Once you choose a direction, you can then partner with a research PI for guidance on how to navigate your question. Sierra Perez, Pre-Health Advisor at Brandeis University, shares not to be afraid to get creative with your research question. She has been impressed by the medical school applicants who have created independent questions that address the community needs. “Applicants are recognizing the critical needs of specific populations, such as homelessness, LGBTQ+, veterans, youth with disabilities, etc.,” she stated. “There is also a demand for translational researchers, or individuals who can take complicated bench topics and apply it to the clinical world.”

Is research experience required to be accepted to medical school? 

It depends. Some medical schools are very research focused; they may require a research thesis or have research time built into the curriculum. Other schools are more community or clinically focused; they would rather have an applicant work in a healthcare setting or volunteer at their local soup kitchen than be at the bench moving clear liquids from one test tube to another. Research experience (in whatever discipline) is helpful for developing some of the AAMC Core Competencies , such as critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, scientific reasoning, as well as teamwork and oral communication skills. How much you should engage in research depends on how much you enjoy it once you try it!

The majority of accepted medical school applicants have some form of academic or clinical research at the time they apply. Competence in research has become increasingly important in the medical field to improve patient care outcomes.

You can also review medical school mission statements to see if research is a focus at a particular school. You can read each school’s mission, and the number of accepted students in their most recent class who had research experience, in the  Medical School Admission Requirements . Remember, it’s best to pursue experiences that you’re genuinely interested in, rather than just to check a box, but you may not know if research is for you until you give it a try.  

Stephanie Blog

  • The Correct Way to Do Your Research: 5 Tips for Students

Mastering the art of research is a fundamental skill that underpins academic success across all disciplines. Whether you’re embarking on a simple essay or delving into a complex thesis, the ability to conduct thorough and effective research is invaluable. Yet, many students find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available, struggling to sift through data, discern credible sources, and organize their findings cohesively. This challenge underscores the need for a structured approach to research, one that simplifies the process while enhancing the quality of the outcomes.

Recognizing the critical role research plays in academic achievement, this article aims to demystify the process, offering five key tips to guide students toward more productive and less stressful research experiences. These strategies are designed to not only streamline your research process but also improve the caliber of your work, potentially transforming the daunting task of starting to dissertation writing help into a more manageable and even enjoyable endeavor. By applying these tips, students can develop a robust framework for research that supports academic growth and fosters confidence in their ability to tackle complex topics.

Tip 1: Define Your Research Question Clearly

A well-defined research question is the cornerstone of any successful research endeavor. It guides the direction of your study, helping to focus your efforts on finding relevant information. Start by identifying the main topic or issue you wish to explore, then narrow it down to a specific question that is both clear and concise. This question should be specific enough to provide direction but broad enough to allow for comprehensive exploration. Examples of effective research questions include “What impact does daily technology use have on teenagers’ social skills?” or “How do renewable energy sources affect global economic policies?”

Tip 2: Use Reliable Sources

The credibility of your research largely depends on the sources you choose. To ensure your work is grounded in reliable information, prioritize sources that are peer-reviewed, such as academic journals, books published by reputable publishers, and websites with authoritative domain extensions (e.g., .edu, .gov). Utilize academic databases like JSTOR, PubMed, and Google Scholar to find scholarly articles. Additionally, learning to assess the author’s credentials, the publication date and the presence of citations can help you determine the reliability of your sources.

Tip 3: Organize Your Research Efficiently

An organized research process is key to managing the wealth of information you’ll encounter. Digital tools and software, such as citation management software like Zotero or EndNote, can be incredibly helpful for keeping track of sources, notes, and bibliographies. Creating a structured outline early on, based on your preliminary findings, can guide your research and writing process, ensuring that you cover all necessary aspects of your topic systematically. This approach not only saves time but also helps maintain a clear focus throughout your project.

Tip 4: Take Effective Notes

Effective note-taking is crucial for capturing important information and ideas from your sources. Develop a system that works for you, whether it’s digital note-taking apps, traditional notebooks, or annotated bibliographies. Focus on summarizing key points in your own words, which aids comprehension and helps avoid unintentional plagiarism. Be sure to record bibliographic details for each source, making it easier to cite them correctly in your work. Highlighting or color-coding can also be useful for categorizing notes by theme or relevance.

By adhering to these foundational tips, students can enhance their research skills, leading to more insightful, well-supported academic papers. The next steps will delve into evaluating and synthesizing information, rounding out the comprehensive guide to conducting effective research.

Tip 5: Evaluate and Synthesize Information

Critical evaluation is essential to differentiate between information that genuinely supports your research question and data that is irrelevant or biased. Assess each source’s purpose, its context, and the evidence it presents. Look for patterns and relationships between the information gathered from various sources. Synthesizing this information involves integrating ideas from multiple sources to construct a comprehensive understanding of your topic. This step is crucial for developing a well-argued thesis or research paper that reflects a deep understanding of the subject matter.

Incorporating Feedback and Revising

Once you’ve drafted your research paper, seeking feedback is a valuable step in refining your work. Share your draft with peers, mentors, or educators who can offer constructive criticism. Be open to suggestions and willing to revise your work based on this feedback. This iterative process of writing, receiving feedback, and revising helps enhance the clarity, coherence, and overall impact of your research.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical research practices are fundamental to maintaining the integrity of your academic work. This includes properly citing all sources to avoid plagiarism, ensuring the confidentiality and privacy of any participants if conducting original research, and being honest about the limitations of your study. Understanding and adhering to these ethical guidelines is crucial for building trust and credibility in your academic endeavors.

The Role of Technology in Research

Technology plays an increasingly significant role in the research process. From digital libraries and academic databases to specialized research software and plagiarism detection tools, leveraging technology can streamline the research process, enhance the quality of your work, and ensure its originality. Familiarize yourself with the technological tools available in your field of study to take full advantage of these resources.

Mastering the art of research is a journey that involves continuous learning, practice, and refinement. By defining clear research questions, utilizing reliable sources, organizing your research efficiently, taking effective notes, and critically evaluating and synthesizing information, you can elevate the quality of your academic work. Remember, incorporating feedback, adhering to ethical guidelines, and leveraging technology are also key components of successful research. For students seeking additional support, turning to the best paper writing service can provide guidance and assistance in navigating the complexities of academic writing and research. Ultimately, developing strong research skills is an investment in your academic success and a valuable asset in your future career.

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February 13, 2024

Understanding sex differences in autoimmune disease

At a glance.

  • The activity of a type of RNA called Xist may help explain why autoimmune diseases are more common in women than men.
  • Additional understanding of Xist and its associated proteins may point researchers towards better treatments and testing for autoimmune diseases.

Close up of a young woman holding her wrist in pain or discomfort.

In autoimmune diseases, the immune system mistakenly identifies some of the body’s own cells as a threat and attacks them. Up to 50 million people in the U.S. live with an autoimmune disease, such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or other, rarer disorders. Most cases of autoimmune disease are thought to arise from a combination of genetic risk factors and exposures to one or more stressors on the body.

Four of every five people diagnosed with an autoimmune disease are female. Researchers have been looking for differences in genes and hormones that may explain this sex difference in incidence, but many pieces of the puzzle remain missing.

Females have two X chromosomes, while males have only one, along with a smaller Y chromosome. To prevent a double dose of all the genes on the X chromosome, one of the X chromosomes in every cell of the female body is randomly inactivated by a long piece of functional RNA called Xist and the more than 80 proteins that associate with it—together called the Xist RNP complex.

A research team led by Dr. Howard Chang from Stanford University noted that some proteins associated with this complex were recognized by autoantibodies—the immune system proteins that attack normal cells in autoimmune diseases. In a new study, funded in part by NIH, they further examined the relationship between the Xist RNP complex and autoimmunity. Their results were published on February 1, 2024, in Cell .

The researchers used two strains of mice. One was resistant to developing autoimmune diseases, while autoimmunity could be easily triggered in the other. They engineered male mice in both strains to produce a form of Xist that wouldn’t shut down their X chromosomes.

In the resistant strain, male mice that produced Xist didn’t develop autoimmunity after exposure to an environmental trigger. But in the vulnerable strain, more than 60% of the males that produced Xist developed severe autoimmune disease after they were given a trigger. In comparison, male mice of this strain that didn’t make Xist did not develop autoimmunity in response to the trigger.

The researchers next looked at autoantibodies to XIST—the human version of Xist—and related proteins in the blood of people. Autoantibodies to dozens of proteins associated with the XIST RNP were found in people with autoimmune diseases but not in those without an autoimmune condition. Many of these same autoantibodies were found in the mice that developed autoimmune disease. Some had previously been associated with autoimmune disease, but others were novel.

“Every cell in a woman’s body produces XIST,” Chang notes, but for several decades, researchers relied on male animals and cell lines for their studies. That made it less likely these anti-XIST-complex antibodies would be seen.

While the XIST RNP complex alone does not cause an autoimmune response, these findings suggest that it may help trigger it in people who are vulnerable. More work is needed to understand exactly which proteins in the complex may be responsible. Such research may lead to more sensitive testing that can catch autoimmune diseases earlier. It could also lead to the development of new approaches to prevent autoimmune diseases.

—by Sharon Reynolds

Related Links

  • VEXAS Syndrome More Common Than Realized
  • Genetic Driver of Some Cases of Lupus Identified
  • Autoimmune Response Found in Many with COVID-19
  • Sex Differences in Autoimmune Disorders and Schizophrenia
  • Marker of Autoimmunity Increases in U.S.
  • High Sugar Intake Worsens Autoimmune Disease in Mice
  • Epstein-Barr Virus and Autoimmune Diseases
  • Gut Microbe Drives Autoimmunity
  • Approach Targets Autoimmunity
  • Autoimmune Disease Super-Regulators Uncovered
  • Understanding Autoimmune Diseases: When Your Body Turns Against You
  • Autoimmune Diseases

References:  Xist ribonucleoproteins promote female sex-biased autoimmunity. Dou DR, Zhao Y, Belk JA, Zhao Y, Casey KM, Chen DC, Li R, Yu B, Srinivasan S, Abe BT, Kraft K, Hellström C, Sjöberg R, Chang S, Feng A, Goldman DW, Shah AA, Petri M, Chung LS, Fiorentino DF, Lundberg EK, Wutz A, Utz PJ, Chang HY. Cell . 2024 Feb 1;187(3):733-749.e16. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.12.037. PMID: 38306984.

Funding:  NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS); Scleroderma Research Foundation; Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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The Importance of Nursing Research

Nursing research has a tremendous influence on current and future professional nursing practice, thus rendering it an essential component of the educational process. This article chronicles the learning experiences of two undergraduate nursing students who were provided with the opportunity to become team members in a study funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. The application process, the various learning opportunities and responsibilities performed by the students, and the benefits and outcomes of the experience are described. The authors hope that by sharing their learning experiences, more students will be given similar opportunities using the strategies presented in this article. Nursing research is critical to the nursing profession and is necessary for continuing advancements that promote optimal nursing care.

Throughout the 21st century, the role of nurse has evolved significantly. Nurses work in a variety of settings, including the hospital, the classroom, the community health department, the business sector, home health care, and the laboratory. Although each role carries different responsibilities, the primary goal of a professional nurse remains the same: to be the client's advocate and provide optimal care on the basis of evidence obtained through research.

Baccalaureate programs in the United States prepare students for entry-level nursing positions. The focus is to care for individuals throughout the human life span. Knowledge is acquired from textbooks, classroom and Web-based instruction, simulation, and clinical experiences. The goal of all programs is for students to graduate as safe, entry-level professionals, having received a well-rounded exposure to the nursing field. Students are exposed to evidence-based nursing practice throughout their curriculum; however, the allocated time for nursing research is often limited. Many programs require only one 3-credit hour course for nursing research. This amount of time is limited, despite the broad spectrum of nursing research and its influence on current and future nursing care.

Research is typically not among the traditional responsibilities of an entry-level nurse. Many nurses are involved in either direct patient care or administrative aspects of health care. Nursing research is a growing field in which individuals within the profession can contribute a variety of skills and experiences to the science of nursing care. There are frequent misconceptions as to what nursing research is. Some individuals do not even know how to begin to define nursing research. According to Polit and Beck (2006) , nursing research is:

systematic inquiry designed to develop knowledge about issues of importance to nurses, including nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing administration. (p. 4)

Nursing research is vital to the practice of professional nursing, and the importance of its inclusion during undergraduate instruction cannot be overemphasized. Only with exposure and experience can students begin to understand the concept and importance of nursing research.

The purpose of this article is to describe undergraduate students’ experiences of becoming aware of and participating in a federally funded research study from the National Institute of Nursing Research. As a part of funding for the study, which was an AREA award ( A cademic R esearch E nhancement A ward, R15 mechanism), there were designated opportunities for student involvement. The primary aim of the research study was to investigate the effects of gene-environment interactions on risk factors of preclinical cardiovascular disease in a cohort of 585 young adults who all had a positive family history of cardiovascular disease (i.e., essential hypertension or premature myocardial infarction at age 55 or younger in one or both biological parents or in one or more grandparents), verified in the medical record. Specific genes examined included cytochrome P-450, family 1, subfamily A, polypeptide 1; cytochrome P-450 2A; glutathione S-transferase mu 1; and glutathione S-transferase theta 1. Cardiovascular-dependent measures were diastolic blood pressure, endothelium-dependent arterial vasodilation, left ventricular mass indexed for body size, systolic blood pressure, and total peripheral resistance. The effects of ethnicity and gender were also explored.

Learning Opportunity

The learning process began with the principal investigator (M.S.T.) of the study visiting the junior class (class of 2007) of baccalaureate students at the Medical College of Georgia. This particular student group was chosen due to their academic standing because they would have the chance to take full advantage of learning directly from a nurse researcher for one full year before graduation. The principal investigator briefly presented and discussed the growing field of nursing research, the advancements made by nursing research, and the critical role of nursing research to nursing practice. The principal investigator also presented an overview of the funded research study and extended an invitation to students to apply for two part-time positions on the grant that were designed specifically for nursing student involvement. Students recognized the excellent opportunity and were intrigued with the future possibilities. They understood this option was unique and appeared to be a great pathway for becoming an active participant in learning the nursing research process through involvement in an official nursing research study.

The principal investigator established objective criteria for the application process. The criteria included writing a maximum 1-page essay sharing the reasons why the students wanted to join the research project as a team member and also sharing their personal and professional goals for involvement in the study. Many students were interested; thus, it was a very competitive process. The principal investigator reviewed the essays and selected approximately 10 prospective individuals for an interview. The interview was an extension of the essay. At the interview, the principal investigator further described the positions, provided a detailed overview of the grant, and had the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the student candidates. The students were encouraged to ask questions to further understand the expectations of the prospective opportunity. The interview also provided the students with increased exposure to the study's goal and more familiarization with the expectations of the funded positions.

After the interview process was completed, two individuals were selected, per the grant specifications. The selected individuals described the interview process as a positive experience that helped solidify their desire to become involved in the research study. The principal investigator emphasized that this job opportunity was designed to be a learning experience in which the students would be guided through the entire research study process and become members of a multidisciplinary team. Time responsibilities for each student included approximately 6 hours per week. The principal investigator communicated clearly that the nursing baccalaureate program was the first priority for the students, and thus provided a flexible work schedule.

Research Study Experience

The students began working in early april 2006. The first step in the work experience included 6 weeks of funded orientation. This was their first exposure to the research process; thus, it was important for the students to be provided with a strong foundation. Orientation included attending a team meeting and being introduced to the members of the multidisciplinary team (i.e., biostatistician, cardiologist, geneticists, nurse researcher, and psychologist, all of whom served as co-investigators, and the genetic laboratory personnel); reviewing the grant application; completing the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) (2000) ; completing the Roche educational program on genetics; and touring the worksite facilities. Reviewing the grant gave the students a better understanding of the specific aims and objectives of the study and the intended procedures of the genetic laboratory work in which the students would be involved. The complexity of the grant required the principal investigator to further explain and clarify specific details. The CITI training, which is required by the institution's Office of Human Research Protection, was completed online and took approximately 5.5 hours. The CITI program was presented in a tutorial format, and satisfactory completion of numerous quizzes was required. The task was tedious and time consuming, but valuable and essential, as it increased the awareness of the established codes of conduct for research. At the conclusion of the CITI training, the students understood the necessary policies and procedures for maintaining security and confidentiality of human subjects, the legal and ethical issues regarding the research process, and the essential procedures for research conduct.

Although the students had a basic understanding of genetics, they completed the Roche Genetics Education Program (2004) to gain a deeper understanding. The program was direct and easy to navigate and was excellent for all learning styles, as it contained both visual and auditory explanations. The explanations covered both basic and complex genetic concepts. Through the use of the genetics program, the students were able to comprehend abstract genetic details and to further understand the importance and influence of genetics on personal health. To conclude the orientation process, students were taught basic laboratory procedures, such as polymerase chain reaction and restrictive enzyme digestion, which were used to perform genotyping for the study. After these procedures had been observed several times, the students were given the opportunity to acquire hands-on experience with these laboratory techniques. Each of these components of the orientation process provided the students with the needed foundation for becoming involved in the research study.

After approximately 2 months of orientation, the students were ready to begin working in the genetics laboratory. One of the primary responsibilities of the students would be to further learn and become confident with genotyping techniques. The laboratory was shared among research personnel of several funded studies, with various research experiments being conducted concurrently. The students, under the supervision of the principal investigator and geneticist (H.Z.), also worked with experienced research assistants to perform the genotyping. The students maintained a daily log describing the laboratory genotyping procedures and experiments, and these logs were reviewed at team meetings. Although the actual procedure for polymerase chain reaction seemed straightforward, the students quickly learned that quality control must be used. Sometimes during genotyping, the DNA samples did not produce results. The students discovered that there are numerous contributing factors to successful polymerase chain reaction, such as quality of DNA templates, primer specifications, temperature settings, gel conditions, pipette measuring accuracy, and general laboratory techniques. Even the slightest error could result in permanent DNA sample loss, major experiment failure, or DNA sample contamination.

The students met with the research team members frequently to discuss and troubleshoot potential solutions and problem solve techniques that would foster improving the success rate and productivity of the genotyping. From the laboratory experience, the students learned that every detail must be considered and addressed precisely and meticulously when conducting experiments. Sometimes the process became frustrating, but the students soon discovered that patience and persistence were the most important attributes for a laboratory researcher to possess. The laboratory experience was an excellent hands-on learning opportunity. The students no longer viewed research as strictly information gathered from a journal or textbook, but rather as a physical act that required extreme concentration, dedication, and determination.

After spending numerous months in the laboratory performing the required genotyping, the students had the opportunity to be exposed to another role of a nurse researcher. They performed literature reviews regarding the study. Although the students had written papers in their nursing school program that required literature citations, they were not familiar with all of the library resources available to them. In no time, the students learned which library and online resources had the most validity and what would be the most relevant to their study. The literature search results provided the students and principal investigator with information on new studies that had been conducted on gene-environment interactions regarding tobacco smoke exposure and cardiovascular disease. From the literature review experience, the students learned the importance of being selective and time efficient. Often when a search was first begun, thousands of articles were listed, but the students learned the importance of narrowing the searches to the specific areas of focus. After the students completed their searches, they met with the principal investigator, who provided direction on the articles identified as the most relevant to the study.

The students continued working with the principal investigator during data review, analysis, and preparation of dissemination of the results (i.e., the publishing process). They helped to prepare an abstract submission of the study presented at an international meeting ( Tingen et al., 2007 ). They also helped with the preparation of manuscripts of the study results. By the conclusion of their work experience, the students will have been exposed to and participated in the entire research process.

Benefits and Outcomes

From the students’ perspectives, this opportunity was extremely beneficial. Prior to this experience, the students were not familiar with nursing research. Their original perception of research was that it was conducted by people with chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and genetic degrees in laboratories at major universities. They now realize that nursing and research can be combined and that optimal nursing care is dependent on the latest research findings. In addition, the students believe this opportunity has been beneficial in learning that nurse researchers are valuable to nurses in other settings. For example, one of the long-term goals of this research study is to develop appropriate interventions for children who are more susceptible to and at risk for the harmful effects of tobacco smoke due to their genetic heritage. The information obtained by a nurse researcher can be disseminated to nurses who work directly with the individuals to whom the research applies. Practice that has shown to be effective through research allows nurses to better advocate for patients and provide the best possible care. Although the majority of nurses who provide patient care will be consumers of nursing research, implementing evidence-based nursing practice is crucial to provide optimal nursing care. Information from nursing research has the potential to directly impact the care provided to patients in all health care settings.

Now that the students have had the opportunity to become more familiar with nursing research through involvement as team members, they recognize that their future professional possibilities are endless. Nursing research is an emerging and growing field in which individuals can apply their nursing education to discover new advancements that promote evidence-based care. They learned the research process and the important roles that each team member plays during the study phases of conception, design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination. Each aspect of the research process is important and contributes to the overall success of the study.

The students also discovered the benefit of trying new things. Prior to this experience, they had little exposure to the research process and nursing research. Consequently, they had to be receptive to learning and recognize that acquiring new knowledge was a gradual process. At times, the students felt anxious because all aspects were new, but they realized that without trying, they would never advance and feel comfortable with the research process. As the students reflected, they thought this was an excellent growing experience professionally, scholastically, and personally. In addition, this opportunity benefited the students’ peers through discussions and their sharing of work responsibilities, the research process, and the importance of evidence-based practice. As future nurses, the students are strong proponents of nursing research, and this experience has also broadened their horizons regarding future professional growth and opportunities. In addition, they have a better understanding of the importance of scientific evidence to support their clinical practice. As a result, the students thought that a stronger emphasis should be placed on nursing research in undergraduate baccalaureate education and that more students should have the opportunity to participate as team members in nursing research studies.

The students were almost one full year into nursing school and thought they had learned about all of the possibilities for their futures when they were first presented with this learning opportunity. They knew their future options were numerous and included working in acute care and community settings. They also realized they could further their education and pursue graduate degrees to include a master's degree and become an administrator, educator, clinical nurse specialist, nurse anesthetist, or nurse practitioner, or potentially pursue a doctorate. They did not know there was an emerging and growing field in which their nursing education could be applied and furthered—the area of research and the role of becoming a nurse researcher. Prior to this experience, students perceived their possibilities for a professional career in nursing were tremendous. Now by being involved in the entire process of conducting a federally funded research study, they realized their future professional possibilities are limitless.

The authors of this paper hope that by sharing their experience, they will encourage both nursing faculty and nursing students to not only introduce the research process into the nursing curriculum, but also to consider making nursing research a tangible and more integrated process. They think that a more beneficial approach to the introduction of research may be achieved through incorporating research-related content into each nursing course throughout the educational process. This could be conducted in addition to the current curriculum plan of many schools of nursing that require a single and concentrated 3-hour research course with a goal of research becoming a positive experience for students that is enthusiastically received as a new learning opportunity. In addition, students who are involved as team members in a funded research study may be provided with scheduled classroom opportunities for making progress reports to their peers. Also, the students could field questions regarding the research project and their experiences. These activities may foster increased learning and interest about research among the students’ classmates.

As nursing students are the future members of the nursing profession, and for the profession to continue to advance, nursing research must be the foundation of comprehensive, evidence-based clinical practice. This may only occur with increased exposure to nursing research. Therefore, it is critical that the future members of the nursing profession be exposed to, develop an appreciation for, and become more involved in nursing research, and thus incorporate its outcomes into the delivery of optimal professional nursing practice.

Acknowledgments

The lead author was awarded a grant (NR008871) from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Nursing Research.

  • Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative [April 14, 2006]; Office of Human Research Protection. The Medical College of Georgia. 2000 from http://www.mcg.edu/Research/ohrp/training/citi.html .
  • Polit DF, Beck CT. Essentials of nursing research: Methods, appraisal, and utilization. 6th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Philadelphia: 2006. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Roche Genetics Education Program [May 10, 2006]; Education. 2004 from http://www.roche.com/research_and_development_r_d_overview/education.htm .
  • Tingen MS, Ludwig DA, Dong Y, Zhu H, Andrews JO, Burnett AH, et al. Tobacco smoke exposure and genetics: Youth at risk for cardiovascular disease.. Proceedings of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.2007. p. 39. [ Google Scholar ]

How secure is your security camera? Hackers can spy on cameras through walls, new research finds

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Capturing real-time video through walls isn’t hard if you have an antenna and a little bit of engineering know-how. It could be a massive threat to billions of security and phone cameras. 

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A security camera on a table.

When it comes to protecting a bank or even your home, security cameras are on one of the first lines of defense. But what if those cameras aren’t as secure as we all think?

New research from Northeastern University confirms that there might be a massive gap in our security infrastructure –– and it comes from the very devices designed to protect it.

Kevin Fu , a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern who specializes in cybersecurity, has figured out a way to eavesdrop on most modern cameras, from home security cameras and dash cams to the camera on your phone. Called EM Eye, short for Electromagnetic Eye , the technique can capture the video from another person’s camera through walls in real time. It redefines the idea of a Peeping Tom.

Headshot of Kevin Fu.

According to Fu, anyone with a few hundred dollars of equipment, a radio antenna and a little bit of engineering know-how could do this. The problem, Fu says, is not the lens but the wires inside most modern cameras.

“With your typical security camera, on the inside there’s a camera lens and then there’s got to be something else on the inside, like a computer chip, that’s got a wireless connection back to the internet,” Fu says. “There are wires between two different chips inside [these cameras,] and those wires give off electromagnetic radiation. We pick up that radio, and then we decode it and it just happens to be that we get the real-time encoded video.”

The data transmission cable that sends a video as bits and bytes ends up unintentionally acting as a radio antenna that leaks all kinds of electromagnetic information, including those bits and bytes. If someone had the desire and the technical knowledge, they could take that electromagnetic signal and reproduce the real-time video, without audio. 

The technique exposes a gap in how manufacturers approach the design and production of cameras.

“The state of modern smartphone cameras is [manufacturers] try really hard to protect the intentional digital interfaces, the actual upload channel to the cloud,” Fu says. “They don’t appear to put a lot of effort into the leakage of information through unintended channels. They never intended for this wire to become a radio transmitter, but it is.”

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The version of the video that Fu and his team get is initially distorted –– it looks almost like an X-ray –– due to pixel loss in the process of being transmitted. However, using machine learning, Fu and his team were able to clean up the video to appear much closer to the original.

Fu and his team have tested EM Eye on 12 different kinds of cameras, including smartphone cameras, dash cams and home security cameras. Results vary on how far away someone would have to be in order to eavesdrop on these different devices. For some, a peeping Tom would have to be less than 1 foot away; for others, they could be as far away as 16 feet.

However, he says, if someone had enough technical know-how, it would take very little to extend that range.

“A sophomore or junior in college could probably do it, but it does get into electrical and computer engineering skills to boost that distance,” Fu says.

More importantly, since EM Eye eavesdrops on the wires, not a computer recording footage to a hard drive, your camera doesn’t actually have to be recording in order for someone to eavesdrop on it.

“If you have your lens open, even if you think you have the camera off, we’re collecting,” Fu says. “Basically, anywhere there’s a camera, now there’s a risk of that live real-time feed being collected by someone as close as a meter or so through walls.”

For consumers, Fu says a plastic lens cover might not be guaranteed to protect you –– infrared signals can still get through them –– but it is a good first step to battling this kind of cyberthreat.

“There’s the classic: Be aware of your surroundings,” Fu says. “Maybe you don’t want to put this [camera] on your wall you share with your neighbor.”

As for camera manufacturers, Fu hopes these findings are a wake-up call.

It’s nice that we have all this software and these … devices, but at the end of the day, they [emit] electrons and they can get out,” Fu says. “If you want to have a complete cybersecurity story, yes, do the good science, but you also have to do the computer engineering and the electrical engineering if you want to protect against these kinds of eavesdropping surveillance threats.”

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  28. Hackers Can Eavesdrop Through Security Cameras, Study Finds

    Hackers can spy on cameras through walls, new research finds. Capturing real-time video through walls isn't hard if you have an antenna and a little bit of engineering know-how. It could be a massive threat to billions of security and phone cameras.